The Fourth Year
by Caligryphy
Summary: SnapeHarry, HBP compliant. Snape is Harry's prisoner. An unforeseen event changes their relationship. Or has it already been changing?
1. Chapter 1

He rose from his nest of quilts and blankets promptly at six. There were nine squeaky floorboards between his bed and the bathroom.

He showered. There were three cracked tiles on the bathroom floor. He brushed his teeth with mint-flavored toothpaste and padded back into his room, where he put on a pair of gray trousers and a black jumper. He tucked his damp hair back with an elastic band.

He didn't look in the mirror. There was nothing to see.

Socks came next, then shoes. As he tied the laces, he caught sight of his nails. "Must trim those," he murmured, adding it to the list of chores.

The house was still dark and quiet. Outside his window, the first rays of sunlight melted away at the edge of the horizon.

For a moment, Severus Snape reflected upon life's little absurdities.

For a longer moment, he reflected on the larger ones.

XXXXX

His knuckles rapped on the closed bedroom door opposite his own. Severus bent his head close to the wood.

He heard a muffled curse and a thump. "I'm awake…! Don't come in!"

"Wouldn't dream of it, your majesty," he said. Snape rolled his eyes for his own benefit, turned sharply, walked down the hallway, and descended the staircase.

Warming charms kept most of the chill from invading the old farmhouse. If he stood in the proper corner, he would catch an icy draught, but most of them could be avoided with a little care. Severus stepped over the pool of cold air in the downstairs hall without having to turn on a light.

He didn't like the lights, first thing. He liked to let the house stay dark and quiet for as long as possible. It made the place feel more like the dungeons. If he closed his eyes, he could almost fool himself. Almost.

The sun peeped over the distant hills, lighting the kitchen with a friendly, orange glow. Perhaps he should've stopped to admire the sight, but there was tea to be made, breakfast, a once-over of the downstairs, and then the washing up before the people at telly (he still wasn't sure quite how the muggle contraption worked) put on one of their decent shows. He reached for his wand.

His pockets were empty.

He flicked the electric switch. The kitchen lit. He took out the kettle and filled it from the tap.

He made omelets loaded with mushrooms, peppers, cheese, and ham. Then he doused the whole mess in hot sauce. The bubbles made him think of cauldrons.

"That smells good," shouted his keeper from somewhere in the house. Judging by the thumping, he was trying to wrestle into his dress robes. 

"Because you aren't the one cooking it," he muttered, and settled further into the kind of not-precisely-peace he'd achieved. It was soothing, pushing egg around the pan. He didn't think about starting the fire with a knob or wiping down windows with a dampened cloth. Nothing but bubbles and heat, the scent of spices, the coaxing of disparate substances into a harmonious whole…

Severus liked cooking.

Potter made his appearance as per usual, which was to say loudly. He was early for the eggs, badly dressed in garish yellow robes, and smiling one of those tremulous, I'm-determined-to-be-cheerful smiles. "That smells good, I was saying."

"I heard you."

"Oh. It does." Potter reached out to pick from the pan.

Severus couldn't resist rapping him on the wrist with the spatula. Just once, but hard.

"Ow! Hey."

"Some respect for my kitchen, Potter."

Harry gripped his welted wrist. "Didn't have to hit me."

Snape smirked. "You'll eat when it's done."

Potter's brow furrowed.

Severus wouldn't make it to three. One, two—

"When will it be done?"

"When it's done. Get the kettle."

When they finally did sit down, Potter tucked in with zeal, ignoring Severus' every attempt to make the food too hot or too spicy (but not so spicy that Snape would find it unpalatable). His eyes didn't even water. "Long shift, today."

"Mm." He made noncommittal noises. They helped move along conversations he didn't particularly want to be a part of.

"Kind that makes you want to stay home. Sometimes I think if I see another missing signature that I've got to hunt down, I'll go absolutely spare. They tell you in training that you've got to be ready for anything, you know, but they never told me it took so much paperwork. I must sign my name five hundred times in the course of a day. Maybe that's an exaggeration. …I just feel like it'll never end, sometimes."

"Quit." Severus dissected his egg. 

"Quit?"

"Quit. You hate it. Quit."

"I can't quit."

"There a law somewhere, says you have to be an Auror?"

Potter looked at him. "You don't understand."

"I was forced into a career I hated for nearly two decades. I'm afraid I must disagree with you."

Potter shook his head. "It's not that simple."

"That's your trouble, Potter. It is."

They lapsed into silence for a time.

"Going by the bookshop later," Potter said between mouthfuls. "Do you want something?"

Snape shrugged.

"I'll get you something."

He shook his head.

A fork slammed down. "Don't be a prat. How can I—what do you want?"

He stared out the window. "Kill me," he suggested mildly.

"No one's going to kill you, Snape. You're going to have to get used to that." Potter sighed and shook his head. His hair stuck straight up in some places. 

"Get a comb," replied Severus.

XXXXX

The life of a house elf left a good deal of time for meditation. 

Severus wasn't particularly fond of this. He preferred to work until it consumed all his mental and physical energy, then lapse into a few blissful hours of unconsciousness before having to get up and do it all over again. He wanted his thoughts to be as well worn as the rest of him when he crawled into bed at night. Menial chores never managed it.

He stopped scrubbing the floor when a pair of shoes presented themselves.

Severus strangled the sponge in his fist and didn't look up. "Tread on my wet floor, and I promise you pain."

Harry paused. "You're not supposed to be a slave, you know."

Severus resumed scrubbing. "Why are you here? Aren't you supposed to be at work? Or do they now pay you for popping in whenever you like?"

"I'm at lunch. I can get Dobby to do that."

"As I've said on occasions too numerous to mention, I do not wish to live with a house elf."

"Maybe he wouldn't have to live here. He could come on weekends."

He wrung out the sponge. "Then perhaps I'll concern myself with weekday grime. Oh! Like this," he said, employing the brightest and most cutting sarcasm he could muster. He bent back to scrubbing.

"It's been four years."

"What has?"

"You've been here four years."

"Have I." Severus spotted a bit of grit he hadn't seen before, caught between the floorboards. 

"Almost exactly."

"And will be for the rest of my miserable life. Thank you, Potter, you really do know how to pick up a man's spirits."

"They're reviewing your case again."

He didn't mean to startle, but it happened anyway. His head snapped up. "Why?"

"Because I asked them to. Because it's time some things changed."

He paused. His knees were aching from scrubbing the kitchen and hallways. They had a mop, somewhere, but it only seemed to push the dirt around. Severus preferred bucket, sponge, and soap. It took longer and felt more like punishment. "Hoping to trade me for a certain Miss Weasley, are we?"

Harry frowned. "That's none of your business."

"I am being reviewed. I'd say it was my business."

"I mean Ginny. She's none of your business."

Severus smirked up at his guardian. "I did save her life."

Harry's frown deepened into a scowl. "You could say thank you," he snapped, and stalked past him, leaving prints on the wet floor.

"All their lives, actually," Severus called. "You know, you could say thank you, Potter!"

A door slammed.

Snape put down the sponge and sagged until his forehead pressed against the cool wood. 

XXXXX

The telly people had a program called 'Port in a Storm.' It centered on three very attractive people in a coastal town who all liked to sleep with each other (and pretty much anyone else happening by). Oddly enough, everyone in the town also seemed to have a terrible and shocking secret.

"He's killed your father," Severus told the screen. The one good thing about the telly was that the actors couldn't hear you. It was a bit like having one of those posh, pre-silenced theatre booths where you could chat or crack walnuts the whole way through and not ruin the play for the man sitting two feet away. "Don't sleep with him. He's killed your father." He reclined on the couch, and had the oddest craving.

He wanted a cigarette.

He hadn't smoked in years. Quite likely, Potter wouldn't allow it.

The woman on the telly screamed.

Severus propped his chin on his hand. "Well, don't blame me. We've all been trying to warn you."

XXXXX

The floo whooshed.

Two voices rose from the parlor.

Severus began slicing the cucumber soundlessly, stopping the knife before it could thunk against the cutting board.

"—Never think about me! Me! You never ask what I want, you just assume. How could you do that? That's my family," the youngest Weasley shrieked. "How could you do that in front of my family?"

"They're my family, too."

"Yeah, well, last time I checked, Harry, you weren't a natural redhead. I mean—you're family, but you're not—family. I'm not ready, okay? Next time you decide to go and do something so stupid as propose without even asking me—"

"It was supposed to be romantic."

"Without so much as a warning? I don't want to get married, Harry!"

"I know that now," he replied.

"You could've done it anywhere else. At a restaurant, at work, anywhere. Instead, you wanted to make me look like the most rude, awful b—in front of everybody! Now I'm a hateful, evil person for wanting to spend a few more years on my career instead of marrying a man who treats me more like a kid sister than a proper girlfriend!"

The parlor went quiet.

Severus put down the knife and crept to the door. 

"I can work on the sex thing."

Snape blinked. He couldn't have just heard that. It was like manna from heaven. If manna were blackmail material.

"No. I think I want—I want to stop this. I don't—Harry. You're our friend. You're like our brother. And that's all it should be."

There was a sort of choked noise. "I can work on the—it's just that I don't like it when people are really close, I c—"

"I'm going back. I'll tell them we both overreacted, we've had a discussion, and we're going to give it more time. Then, over the next couple of months, we'll start breaking it off, seeing other people."

"Have you met someone?" Harry asked. Accusation dripped from his voice.

"Yes."

XXXXX

Potter took the week off work.

"Pity. Hundreds of bored schoolchildren won't be forced to listen to a short man extol the virtues of staying in school and off the dark arts."

Harry put his head in his hands and sobbed out a breath.

Severus added more cayenne pepper to the mixture coating the chicken. The smell of spices hung thick in the air. "…Rather overshot that one," he grunted, finished the chicken, and served them. 

Potter had the indecency to wipe his eyes throughout the meal.

Severus kept his on his plate.

"This is really good," Potter said. "You're a good cook."

Snape murmured an acknowledgement. He coughed.

"You keep the house really clean, too."

He swallowed. "Mister Potter."

"I'm utterly useless. At everything. I can't do anything right. Not even good enough to be a proper Auror—I sit at a desk all day filling out forms, and when I'm not doing that, I go to schools and read speeches that they've written for me. Might as well not wear the uniform. Might as well have strings attached. They could hollow me out, stuff me with straw, and pipe in a voice."

"Mister Potter."

"I had a girlfriend. Had. One. Probably never get another. Never have a family."

Snape's hands clenched around his cutlery.

"Never."

He growled. "Of all the—Potter. You're young. You're rich. You may be short, but otherwise you've done well in the looks department." He stabbed at his chicken. It was too quiet, so he added, "Nor are you particularly intelligent, but I can't see how that would be anything but a positive boon to an up-and-coming Ministry professional."

"Are you trying to make me feel better?" he hissed. It was a slight improvement from the moping.

"You don't need to work, Potter. You have more than enough to modestly support a small, third-world country. You want another girlfriend? Write back to one of those well-wishers that continues to haunt you with letters. And if you want a family so sodding much, have one."

"Have one." Potter blinked at him.

Snape cut his meat. "Adopt. Buy one. Get yourself pregnant."

"Get mys…" His eyes bulged. "What?"

"You'd spend nine months without being able to see your testicles, but it's been done many a time before by bigger idiots than you."

Harry stared at him. He looked too horrified to cry.

Severus speared the chicken. "I do tea, Potter. Not sympathy."

XXXXX

Potter spent Sundays with the Weasleys. Or had. The extended visits became shorter and shorter, and one Sunday, Potter remained at the house in his pajamas.

"Not going to visit your redheaded friends today?" Snape asked as he folded the linens.

The young man looked at the folding and surprisingly did not suggest a house elf should come and attend them. He rubbed at the scar still gracing his forehead. Potter told interviewers that it no longer hurt, and the rubbing was just a habit, but the movement always made Snape itch to look at his arm to make certain the mark was still gone. "No," he said. "Do you need help?"

Before Snape could swat him like a fly, he grabbed the other end of the sheet and brought it up to meet the corners in Snape's hands. He stayed to help with the next, and the next.

"I passed my physical," said Potter.

"Oh?" It wasn't particularly interesting, but neither was the telly.

"Yeah. I still have to take one, even though I don't do field work. They passed me through on the last three, even when they shouldn't have. Know why I failed?"

"Haven't the foggiest."

"I was underweight."

The sheets billowed like sails. "I could've told you that."

"I knew it. But I've been eating," Potter said quietly. "So I passed, free and clear. …Guess I should thank you for making me."

"I don't have a wand, Potter; I can hardly make you do anything."

"You make sure I'm awake, you fix breakfast, you make dinner. I always have clean robes. I feel better now than I used to. Turns out," he snickered suddenly, "I have to go get new ones. The old dress robes don't fit anymore."

"Ballooning out at an alarming rate, are we?"

"Bring on the balloon. I'm tired of people shoving food at me."

They finished the sheets and began matching the socks. It didn't take long. Everything long and black belonged to Snape; all the short, bright ones went with Potter.

"…Snape?"

"What?" Potter's continued presence wasn't irritating, exactly, but it was odd.

"Do you hate it here?"

He sniffed. He rolled a pair of black socks into a ball. "That hardly matters. I'm not supposed to enjoy my sentence."

"Yeah, but. Look. We could've—you could've made life a lot more painful. Granted, you did flood the house that one time…" Harry trailed off.

Snape remained silent. Even on his deathbed, he would never divulge the details of the Washing Machine Incident.

"But, no harm done." He paused. "I'm feeling generous, Snape. You should take advantage. What do you want? You never ask for anything, except what goes on the shopping list. There must be something."

Snape shook his head.

"Come on. There has to be. Something. Anything. Try me."

Wait. "Cigarettes," he said.

Potter blinked. "Cigarettes? I didn't know you smoked."

"Obviously, I haven't in some time. I'd like to again, if it's all right with you, Potter." He frowned. "Well? You did ask what I wanted."

"Cigarettes." Potter frowned back. "I don't want the house to smell."

So much for that, then. "Never mind." He sighed.

"Wait. You can't go outside, I know. But—"

"Don't trouble yourself, Potter." Severus plucked the basket from the table. "I won't sully your precious nasal passages. Will you be dining here, this evening? I expected you to eat with your little redheaded friends. I've only put out enough steak to defrost for one." It would've been a brilliant meal. Loaded potato, asparagus, butter—but it was only fun to eat those sorts of dinners with Potter gone.

"I could thaw some more with my wand."

"Don't bother. I'll make the pasta."

"I could cook," offered Potter.

"You could melt the noodles to the pan, you mean."

Potter had the gall to look hurt. "I can cook. Just because you never let me doesn't mean I can't. You're always calling it your kitchen."

"It was either take over or surrender myself to take out."

"Take out is easier. I do work all day."

Snape bared his teeth. "Yes, Potter, and I do nothing. I spend all day lying on a velvet couch while house elves feed me peeled grapes."

"That's not what I meant! I just meant—if I was given the opportunity—I could cook. I used to be a good cook. I don't need my wand, either. My muggle relatives used to make me cook all the time when I was growing up." His lower lip stuck out.

Snape cupped a hand to his ear. "Potter, listen. It's the wizarding world's smallest goblin quartet, and they're playing just for you." He sneered. "Do make some feeble attempt at not feeling sorry for yourself all the time. It's quite dull, and you might get something accomplished." He hefted the basket and swept past Potter. "Excuse me. I have to rush right to my bubble bath. The servants are waiting to fan me."

He lingered on the stairs for a moment longer than he needed to.

Potter never took a parting shot.

XXXXX

The credits for 'Port in a Storm' always showed a ship on the sea, but the actual show seemed rather short on boats.

"One nautical story line. Is that so much to ask?" Today, it was. The main characters were embroiled in the same plot they'd been slogging through since he'd started watching the show. 

Althea wanted to marry Charles, but Charles was in love with Kristine. For some reason, Althea decided to dull her pain by having vigorous sex in the backseat of an automobile (which didn't look comfortable at all) with a fellow named Robin. Robin said very little. He was obviously hired for his talent at being shirtless as opposed to his dramatic line delivery.

"None of you have a brain in your heads. If you were my students, I'd assign veritable rounds of detention. You would be forced to copy over the sexuality section of the 'Illustrated Guide of Magical Misfires' until the very thought of coitus would bring on nausea so crippling you wouldn't be able to leave the toilet."

The floo whooshed.

Severus scrambled for the little rectangle called the clicker and turned off the telly.

Potter marched in. He wore pale blue robes instead of his usual dress.

"Not a workday, Potter?" He half-heartedly straightened the cushions.

He tossed a plastic bag at Severus. "I'm thinking of quitting, to tell you the truth. It's a little tense down there these days."

Snape caught the bag. He opened it.

"I didn't know which kind you liked."

He sifted through the bag. There were packs upon packs of cigarettes.

"I'd rather you not smoke them in the house."

"I can't leave the house, Potter. That's why they call it house arrest."

"You can hang your head out the window, though." Harry beamed. "You said you wanted to smoke; those are the rules." His grin turned a bit nasty. "So. What do we say, Snape?"

Severus sniffed. "You forgot the matches."

"Such a git," Potter muttered, shaking his head.

Severus pretended not to hear it. He cracked open the seal on a red-striped pack and inhaled the scent.

As a peace offering, they would serve.

XXXXX

"We're officially broken up. Well, we were before, but now, it's public knowledge. Not that you care, but I thought I'd keep you informed," Potter told him, with the same sort of false brightness he wore for press photos. "Pass the chili sauce, please."

He did.

Potter spooned a large portion of the sauce onto his rice, meat, and vegetables. The meal could be made out of cardboard and Potter wouldn't notice.

Severus might have been offended, but he'd never been a man to appreciate blandness, either. Now that he didn't have to rely on his nose and his taste buds to tell him if he'd been poisoned, Snape enjoyed his food with a bit of bite. He poured a generous serving over his own plate.

"Heinrich and his mates are at me again to get you for an interview."

Snape frowned. "Who? No. No interviews."

"You might consider it."

"I might stick a fork in the toaster." He'd learned about that one the hard way.

"No matter that making an impression on some influential people would help you get out of here sooner."

"Arsenic would help me get out of here sooner." Making an impression would get him into prison. Not that he wasn't in a prison of sorts, but as prisons went—it could've been worse.

"Could be the difference between a few more years and life, Snape. Think about it."

"I don't want to think."

"Smoke until your lungs shrivel, then."

"What a wonderful suggestion, Potter. I think I will, after dinner." He ate neatly, in silent protest of the way his companion consumed his meal. Potter shoveled food down his gullet rather than properly chewing and digesting. 

"…Could I come?"

"What?"

Potter's knife and fork were poised above his plate. "Never mind," he corrected, ducking his head.

Severus paused mid-chew. "You want to smoke?"

"No. I. Well—it's not as if there's much else to do around here. Anyway, I've never smoked before."

"Expanding our horizons, Potter?"

"Dunno. Never mind." He fell to eating again.

He studied his guardian with a very small measure of pity. Potter must have been in a truly pathetic state to beg for his company. "Yes, all right. But no talking."

Harry nodded.

XXXXX

"Shallow breaths, first. Or you'll—cough." He thumped a hacking Potter on the back a little harder than necessary.

"I'm even pathetic at smoking," Potter wheezed.

"Everyone coughs the first time."

"Really?"

His eyes narrowed. "Yes."

"Okay. No need to get defensive."

"No talking, Potter." In the cold, their breaths steamed around the smoke. More than once, he caught Potter breathing only air, the cigarette dangling from his hand. 

The second floor hall window was the biggest in the house. Severus looked down and considered the drop. Likely, it wouldn't kill him, and staying in hospital was worse than with Potter. Snow flurries had coated the piles of rotting leaves with a wintry slush that would make the failed attempt that much more unpleasant. 

"We're like dragons," Potter whispered, and breathed smoke.

XXXXX

On Tuesday, Kristine fell down a well. No one could seem to get her out, despite the fact that they were all grown adults with lots of equipment, and she was conscious enough to tell the crews above all about the pipe that had fallen on her and kept her pinned down. Despite her dire circumstances, she was able to explain to Althea (in a shocking turn of events!) that she'd fallen in love with her.

Severus folded his arms. "This is just stupid."

"What's stupid?" asked Potter. He was underfoot again, perched in the window seat with a stack of mail to answer. Potter needed a bloody girlfriend, and soon, or Severus was never going to have any peace.

"Telly."

"Yeah, well, most people would agree with you, there. …I could get you more books."

"I don't want books."

"Why not?"

He clicked off the telly. "Books have nothing to offer." He stared at the pinprick of white light left in the center of the blank screen.

"And television does?"

"Telly will not waste my time with magical theory I will never be able to apply, potion advancements I will never experience first-hand, and the assumption that each and every wizard reading has the free use of a wand."

Harry paused. "There are muggle books."

"Diagon Alley carries nothing but pulp trash." Which was what he watched on telly... 

"Bet muggle London has something."

Severus thought for a moment. Telly was getting incredibly moronic. "If you happen to pass a muggle bookstore, I suppose I might thumb through a few titles," he grudgingly conceded. But it was the last thing he'd accept. If he went on rolling over for treats, there would be no end to it. Potter might as well buy him a leash and collar.

"Fiction? Non-fiction?"

"I'm not familiar with muggle literature."

"He said, sneering."

He pressed the clicker and glared at Potter. "And I suppose you are? I've read a few muggle children's books, Potter, but since I became a wizard, I've read wizarding books. The implication that my unfamiliarity makes me in some way a bigot—fuck you, Potter."

"That's mature."

"Answer your fan mail. 'Dearest arse-kissing sycophant who believes I'm as tall as the press photos make me look'…"

"Why is it always the short jokes?"

"I did notice 'greasy' often prefaces 'git.'"

Potter was quiet.

He didn't trust a quiet Potter. Severus crossed his legs and arched a brow. 

"All right. Fair play," he finally said, nodding. 

Severus turned back to the telly.

Althea was very upset. She needed several close-ups to convey this.

"That is stupid," said Potter.

XXXXX

Wanking.

A difficult subject.

Difficult to manage in the echoing house. A proper wank, that is. A good, hard, door-locked, lubricant-aided wank—that's what he wanted at night. Not some furtive, below-the-covers groping.

He could have a wank while Potter was at work, but that would only serve to put him behind on his schedule, and there was no telling how undisciplined he would become if he allowed himself a wank and a nap every afternoon.

If his cleaning and cooking skills lacked, Potter would call in the house elf.

Severus shuddered at the thought. The days were hard enough to pass with the aid of chores. He could clean. He could cook. He could pretend that he was somehow still vital to some future plan. His life would never be his own, granted, but there was a possibility he could still contribute. Until then, he would maintain. He would master the (sadly) domestic spheres available to him. He would wait. He would scrub. He would stew.

Then, he would have a good, long wank as a daily reward, in the interest of preserving what little temper and sanity the war and Wizengamot had left him.

"Sodding Potter," he muttered. It was very hard to concentrate when he could hear movement through the walls. "Shut up," he ground through clenched teeth. He pulled at his cock gently, teasing it to hardness, and closed his eyes as he pressed his face into the pillow.

Oh, yes. That was it.

He conjured up a few different scenarios: nothing complicated or personal. Over the years, he'd found that the most effective fantasies were the ones most unlikely to happen.

For reasons he'd never fully explored, he really enjoyed the ones that involved working on, and alternatively being held prisoner on, a pirate ship. Tonight, he was the Captain. The first mate was reluctant, but fortunately in need of some strict discipline. He was just begging Severus to spare him the lash—

There was a soft knock at the door.

Snape groaned into the pillow. He stilled with his hand on his cock.

"Snape? Are you awake?" Potter's voice sounded through the wood.

He didn't speak.

"Snape?"

He didn't make a sound.

Minutes passed, and Snape relaxed.

After some time (and a bit of progress lost), he resumed his activity. The first mate looked a bit like a slighter version of Kingsley Shacklebolt (goody-goody bastard that he was, he was still compelling in the looks department). Snape ordered him to his knees.

"That's right," he muttered into the pillow, thrusting into his fist. "You're going to suck me, and you're going to love it."

It didn't take long, even with Snape trying to keep his activities quiet. First mate Kingsley, it seemed, was a very eager bottom. So eager that he pushed his arse in the air and moaned for the Captain to do something about his hungry little hole. And what kind of a Captain wouldn't oblige his first mate's desperate plea for a nice, stiff—

A floorboard creaked.

Severus thrust against his fist, speeding the last few strokes until he spurted into his hand and groaned with satisfaction.

Afterglow was brief, but blissful.

Eventually, he groped on the bedside table for a tissue. That was when he noticed.

The door was open.

XXXXX

Snape frowned.

"Morning," mumbled Potter. He didn't look up from the Prophet.

That is, he pointedly didn't look up from the Prophet.

Snape's fury cooled. If Potter wasn't going to say anything, perhaps it was all right. He'd been under the covers, after all, and everyone had a wank now and then. Potter could hardly spread tales about barging into Snape's room and catching him doing anything unnatural. If a man couldn't have a go at himself under the covers in his own bedroom in the dark, where was he supposed to do it?

Severus sniffed loudly.

The crease between Potter's brows deepened. His Adam's apple bobbed.

"Sleep well, Potter?"

"Hnh? What? Oh. Yes." He looked up, then hurriedly back down.

The kettle was already warm. Potter had a bowl of cereal near his elbow. Severus considered making something hot for himself, but vetoed the idea. There were cold muffins in the icebox. "You're awake early."

"Yeah. I know. I mean. Yeah." He cleared his throat. "Couldn't sleep very well."

"You just told me you did sleep well, Mister Potter."

"What? Oh. …I guess I wasn't listening," Harry mumbled. "Busy day. I have to attend this internal investigation thing right off—that'll be loads of fun. Then I've got to go give a speech." His spoon scraped the bowl. "The worst part isn't even the speech, really. It's when people ask uncomfortable questions afterward, or when they try and take things. Or when I go into the office for an hour or however long beforehand, then I leave to go make the speech—which is part of my job, thank you—and they all joke that I'm skiving off work and going home, which is ludicrous. I'm there more than ninety-five percent of my colleagues. Seems like I'm always there." He cleared his throat. "So, yeah. Been thinking about that."

Snape nodded. "Wanking," he said quietly. He poured a cup of tea.

"What?" squawked Potter.

"Working," he said in a louder voice.

"Right." His teacup rattled against his saucer.

Severus sat down opposite. He hid his smirk in a section of the Prophet. "Oh, look."

"What?"

"New study. Voyeurism is on the rise."

Potter pushed away his food. His cheeks colored. "I need to get going," he said. "I might be home late." He rose quickly from his seat and left. The floo whooshed, and everything was quiet.

Severus licked his fingers, turned the page, and then finished Potter's cereal.


	2. Chapter 2

Althea was giving Kristine some thought. Charles was so angry, he had to bite his knuckles and deliver a very poorly written monologue. Then he slept with a waitress named Patricia for no good reason at all.

Severus sighed. He pushed open the living room window, keeping half-heartedly near it as he lit another cigarette. The only ones he hadn't liked were some honey-clove monstrosities which he'd executed by dropping them one at a time into the bushes from the second floor window. He'd made up crimes against humanity for each of them, passed sentence, and given a little scream each time one plummeted to the earth.

"I'm going slightly mad…" he sang, and idly contemplated shaving off all his body hair just to see the look on Potter's face.

It was a normal day. Normal and dull as most of the days before it. Quite likely as normal as those to come.

That was the heart and head-achingly tough bit. There was nothing to look forward to. Perhaps nothing to dread, either, but miles and miles of same on the horizon. Even in the blackest days at Hogwarts, he'd been able to clutch his wand until it hurt and think—this will pass.

But this wouldn't. Potter could schedule as many reviews as he liked; there would be no escape, save by the obvious route, and who needed the Wizengamot to accomplish that?

Severus contemplated his navel, his fingernails, fate, and the recipe for enchiladas spicy enough to make Potter cry like the prissy little door-opener he was. 

Maybe he would shave himself from head to toe. It would be itchy growing back in, though. He might cut something vital, or get so carried away by the whole affair that he started slashing arteries.

Perhaps he'd just scrub the upstairs hall again.

The floo whooshed.

Then again. Then again—and again—and again.

Snape blinked.

Potter's floo was usually open to one person. Potter. He didn't have visitors, save the youngest Weasley's rare trespass, and even those visits had stopped since the engagement incident.

Maybe it was the Weasleys. Maybe it was Aurors come to tell him that, by some ridiculous accident involving an engorgement charm and a paperclip, Potter was dead. Maybe someone had set his floo incorrectly, or maybe a big Harry Potter fan at the network had broken in.

Severus wondered if he was obligated to offer them tea. He rose from the couch.

"HARRY POTTER!" thundered an unfamiliar voice. "WE KNOW YOU'RE HERE!"

"Yeah! And you're coming with us, one way or another."

Snape took a drag off the cigarette. He had the worst feeling that this was going to throw off the whole of the afternoon.

"Don't make us come looking for you, Harry!"

Of all the days for dark wizards to divine Potter's residence, it would be today. He stubbed out his cigarette on the sill. Diving out the window wasn't an option—the net of wards would snare him like a spiderweb, leaving him even more defenseless than he was now.

He heard shoes tromp into the kitchen.

Bugger.

Running wasn't an option. Hiding wasn't either, really; there were only so many places to conceal oneself without magic.

Right. Fighting it is, Snape thought.

He crept into the hall.

A wizard stood at the entrance to the kitchen, his back momentarily to Snape.

His hands itched for a wand. Like the one the wizard held loosely in his right hand.

There was a slight, erm, issue. 'I, Severus Snape, shall touch neither wand nor staff; nor shall I engage in the willful use of magic by any other means.' It was a condition of his release. A vow. Not Unbreakable, but a vow nonetheless.

But there the wand was, right there, begging to be held. 'Take me,' it seemed to call. It was short, made of what looked like yew, and didn't even have proper grooves worn into it. Bastard probably took it home and put polish on it to make it shinier. The wizard obviously didn't appreciate what he had.

Severus wet his lips.

"—check the upstairs," one of them said.

The wizard nearby began to turn.

Snape struck.

He wasn't so fast as he used to be, but was still fast enough. He had the wand in one hand and the other around the wizard's throat before the man could form a protest. 

He considered casting binding spells. That would be the way to do it: honorable, laudable, and forgivable. He couldn't form the words on his lips. His first spell in so many years wasn't going to be bloody Petrificus Totalus.

"Incendio," he hissed, and shoved the flaming, screaming wizard forward into the kitchen while he stepped back, retreating quickly and quietly up the stairs.

He cast a chameleon spell on himself and pressed against the wall, listening to the screams and the sounds of the wizards' agitation increasing exponentially. He figured there must be at least four of them, with one disarmed and smoldering.

Oh, yes.

Snape pressed his back against the wall in the shadows near the top of the stairs. He fingered the purloined wand. It fit neatly into his hand, and didn't hiss or spit the way a truly incompatible wand would. It wasn't quite the same as his old one, but his old one was in small pieces (that were likely in a warded case at the bottom of the ocean, knowing Ministry paranoia). It had been fouled with polish. Severus wiped off what he could on his sleeve. "Hullo," he whispered. "Our acquaintance may be brief, but I shall endeavor to treat you with respect."

Perhaps it was the adrenaline, but he imagined the wand hummed at him.

"Right, then." There was an off-chance that they'd kill him, of course, but since he'd already violated the arrest agreement, there was every indication that he'd be locked in a very tiny box in Newtgate Prison come tomorrow no matter his intentions. Or theirs. Might as well enjoy the moment.

The voices downstairs hushed.

"Harry? This isn't the way we wanted it," one of them called. Nice suddenly oozed through his words. "We came here to talk. We're all Aurors here; we know how badly it could turn out if we all don't keep level heads about this thing."

His grip on the wand tightened.

Holy sodding hell.

Dark wizards were one thing. A child could call himself a dark wizard. He should've cast as many trap wards as he could when he had the chance. Snape edged down the hall, avoiding the squeaky floorboards.

"We're your brothers, Harry. We're all on the same team, here. We need you to drop the complaint."

A dull squeak. A foot on the bottom stair.

There was his bedroom or Potter's. His bedroom had nothing to offer, but unless Potter's invisibility cloak was draped over his bed… Actually, it was worth a look.

"It's not worth fighting over, is it? It's a little skim off the top. A little something extra. You know they don't pay us much. Not what we're worth. We're out there risking our necks."

"We appreciate that you're a good bloke, Harry," said another. "You're doing your job. But us grunts aren't all like you. We don't get special fees. We don't get supervisors who'll look the other way when we feel like slipping off home in the middle of the morning."

"We've got children to take care of. Wives."

"Ex-wives," one muttered. A dark chuckle answered it.

Apparently, Potter had been up to more at the Ministry than lecturing primary schoolers and filing paperwork. Typical Gryffindor.

"Come on, Harry. We're going to do everybody a favor. We'll fix the complaint and we'll all go about our business. We'll even cast a memory charm, if that'll make you feel better. Look, we don't want to hurt you. You're a nice kid. You may have scared Robbie, but we know you're not really going to hurt any of us. We know you too well."

Severus couldn't resist. "I wonder," he drawled, "how well you know the former Death Eater Potter keeps in his house? Who's now armed, by the way." He was gratified to hear cursing.

"So where's Harry?" one demanded.

Bit arrogant, Severus thought. He eased open Potter's bedroom door. They were backing him into a corner, true, but they didn't necessarily know that. With one eye on the landing, he drew a line in front of his own bedroom door with the wand. The ward was quick and dirty. He held little hope it would snare anyone, but he could try.

Severus waited. 

"We're not interested in you. We're after Harry."

Close, now. Two more groans on the step. Three of them. The second floor hall ran perpendicular to the stairs; to reach the bedrooms, they'd have to climb to the top of the steps and turn the corner.

"He hiding up here? We're not here to hurt anyone. We want this to be as painless as possible—for everyone. If Harry's not here, we'll cast a memory charm and be on our way."

Heard that one before, thought Snape, and aimed close to the floor. It was a memory charm, and then maybe a Heartrace Hex while the victim was stunned, cast over and over until something inside snapped. Heart attacks happened every day.

The tip of a toe edged onto the landing. It was all Severus needed. He cast a leg-locker curse and retreated into Potter's room as he heard the thud, tumble, crash of a wizard falling down the stairs.

Two left. Maybe only one, if he'd taken one of the others down with him. …No, two.

He closed Potter's door quietly, cast a stronger stun ward inside the door, and glanced around. Laundry on the floor, of course, and books spread out on the dresser and stacked in piles on the shelves. Old, half-finished cups of tea garnished the mess.

"Should've let me clean his room." He frowned.

There wasn't an invisibility cloak apparent. He crouched behind the bed for cover. It had a red and gold bedspread draped across it. Snape suspected that it had been stolen from Hogwarts.

There was a crackle of his bedroom ward going off. They'd tripped it. From down the hall, he heard a sotto voice conversation. Strategy.

Quiet.

Severus gripped the wand more tightly.

He didn't smell it as soon as he should've. Not until it began rising into the air from under the door.

Smoke. A smoking charm. They were going to smoke him out.

After he'd been so bloody careful to hold his cigarettes out of windows. After he'd spent years cleaning and keeping the house nice. After he'd acquainted himself with every inch of his cage, convinced himself that prison could be home (it had been before), and had finally (mostly) stopped groping himself for a wand that wasn't there—they were going to smoke him out like common vermin, and ruin all his hard work while they were at it.

Deep down, the switches on all Severus' internal censors clicked off, shut down, went dark as the telly.

He rose, stooping just under the hanging cloud of black smoke, and blasted out the door. With a slice of the wand, he deflected the first, then second curse that came at him through the smoke. Magic crackled from his wand and his fingertips as he returned fire. Delivering cutting curses was always like flinging batter off a spoon, or maybe paint off a brush—but he'd never painted, except as a child with his fingers, once, and that had got him into trouble—

The stun ward inside the door activated, immobilizing a bulky Auror as he stepped into Potter's bedroom. He stared with wide eyes at the wand trained on his forehead.

Severus' wand flickered.

Wizards could fly without brooms.

There was a sickening crack, a crunch of bone and wood, and Severus could just see across the hall through the second shattered doorway into his own bedroom, where the Auror sprawled across the floorboards. 

One left.

Only now he could swear he heard voices downstairs. Perhaps they were regrouping. Perhaps they'd called for reinforcements.

Severus ducked into the hallway. Immediately, he dodged a hex and sent one of his own.

The other Auror dodged as well. He was reedy, with a wispy red beard and a head as bald and round as an egg. He had a nasty grin. "Crucio."

Severus should've been faster.

The pain was short of blinding. His joints twisted. He dropped to the floor, but didn't feel compelled to scream. A non-specific, only vaguely malicious form of the curse—it made his eyes roll back and his fingers clench, but was nothing compared with Voldemort. He half-staggered, half-rolled back into Potter's room.

Footsteps behind him.

Severus didn't think. He pointed the wand at the garish Gryffindor bedcover and hurled it at the doorway and the approaching wizard. It fell like a net, leaving Severus time to lunge for the legs of his attacker. The wizard toppled, flailing at the covering. Snape climbed on top of him, all thought beyond instinct lost to the cloud of swirling black smoke and the pulse of adrenaline. He pounded at the struggling form below the blanket, beating at the hard shape of a skull beneath the cloth. He brought down elbows and knees, spitting non-magical curses until the wizard stopped moving and a wet, off-red patch appeared on the bedspread.

Across the hall, the bulky Auror on his bedroom floor hadn't moved.

He stood on shaky legs and lurched down the hall. Severus had to see what had become of the other two.

At the bottom of the stairs was the crumpled body of an Auror. Two others stood beside him.

Severus raised his wand.

One of them looked up. "Wait, st—"

He stunned one, the other, and the next out of the kitchen door, descending as he cast. There was a clamor. He heard it as if his ears were stuffed with cotton wool. One from the living room, one from the front door—

They got him in the side. He tumbled to his knees, but didn't let go of the wand. Someone was screaming. He hoped it wasn't him. He pointed the wand, seeking his next target.

He found Potter's face.

"Snape."

He blinked. Don't curse Potter, Snape thought, or he was liable to do something cruel and unusual, like take away telly privileges.

"Snape. I said back off," Potter shouted at movement behind him. "Snape. Are you all right?"

His eyes found the crumpled wizard again. He dropped the stolen wand. "Tell them I'd rather be executed. All things considered."

They caught him before he hit the ground.

XXXXX

Someone was holding his hand. 

"It's a dangerous habit."

"I know."

"Well, he should give it up. And if you're the one who supplies him—you shouldn't be encouraging it."

"You don't understand." A sigh. "There's so little that he… that he actually likes. If he wants to smoke a bit—"

"Spells can't cure lung cancer, Mister Potter. If you'd like to see him in with a bunch of muggles, hooked up to a batch of machines—"

"No."

"There's nothing sadder than to watch a wizard at the mercy of muggle medical science."

"I think he might be all right with it. He's getting downright fond of muggles, these days."

A sniff. "In muggle hospitals, Mister Lancashire would be considered paralyzed. Here, we have the facilities to repair the damage to his—"

"I don't care what happens to those—those thieves," Potter hissed. "I'm not in the mood to debate muggle versus magical medicine with you. If you're uncomfortable with us here, feel free to throw us out."

"After your behavior towards my staff, I should!"

"Potter," Snape mumbled, "I don't recall letting in a harpy."

There was an affronted cry of "Hmph!" A door slammed.

"You're a tactful bloke."

"Mm." He was tired. Someone was holding his hand. "Are they taking me away?" His chest was a little tight. His eyes didn't particularly want to open. 

"No. I let them know it wasn't an option. They don't want me running to Luna and Colin. Not when it involves an internal investigation. Of course, someone's leaked most of the story to the Prophet already anyway. No surprise there. Everyone made it out alive, though, even the prat you set on fire. He'll need major reconstructive healing to fix the parts of his back and neck where you more or less melted his skin off. How do you do that with an Incendio?"

"Been storing it up. Special occasion and all."

"Picked a good one, then. You made it through with barely a scratch. If you'd remembered a bubble-head charm, we wouldn't even be in here." Potter squeezed his hand.

It was quite… weird. "Bubble-head charm?"

"Smoke inhalation."

Under closed lids, Severus rolled his eyes. He sighed. "I never miss the subtle. It's always something stupid and obvious."

"Thanks, by the way. Not many people I know would fight four angry Aurors for me."

He snorted. "Things I do for a change of scenery."

"You haven't opened your eyes. You okay? Tired?"

"A bit."

Another hand squeeze. "Get some more rest. I'll keep watch."

Snape knew he would. Potter was a depressed idiot, but he was an honorable, depressed idiot. "You're holding my hand."

Potter dropped it like a hot skillet. "Sorry."

"I didn't say I found it particularly objectionable." It wasn't. Slightly strange, but…

"You don't mind?" Fingers threaded with his own again. "This is okay?"

Oddly enough, it was. "I don't like hospital," he said. Nor did he enjoy the thought of the likely fast-approaching inquisition, or the possible incarceration, or the likely execution. His heart beat faster. 'What did you do?' his mind screamed. 'What were you thinking?'

"Me, neither. They say you'll be able to leave by this evening. I've got a place for us to stay while the investigators finish with the house. Small, but it'll work for a while."

He felt nauseous and tired. "I don't have any of my things. I need my toothbrush," he blurted. His hands groped his pockets—or where his pockets would be, if he weren't wearing a hospital robe. The wand had been confiscated. "I need my clothes."

"We'll get them for you. Relax."

"Relax?" Severus barked a laugh. "Relax? They're going to kill me for this."

"No one's going to kill you, Snape. Not while I'm around. Get some rest. I'll keep watch."

Severus barely opened his eyes. The light was exceptionally bright, casting a halo around Potter's shadow. "It's a pity, really. I don't want to go, now. I was just getting used to the place."

"Home? Yeah. Yeah, me too."

XXXXX

"If you can't guarantee his safety, then why should I trust you?"

"It's not a question of that! When the Wizengamot set guidelines for this—this—increasingly farcical arrangement, I'm sure they didn't mean that you could go gallivanting off across the countryside to parts unknown with—with that!"

"You'll wake 'that' up, if you aren't careful." Potter's voice was eerily calm. "I'm supposed to provide for him. I'm to make sure he's safe and secure. That's against others and for others, both."

"That doesn't mean you can leave the country with a—a Death Eater!"

Snape opened his eyes.

The Auror stepped back.

"Afternoon, Snape," said Potter. "They're kicking us out."

"We are not! I don't speak for St. Mungo's, as well you know."

"Of course not, Captain," said Potter. "And I'm not leaving the country. I'm taking him somewhere safe. Right now, that isn't anywhere the Ministry controls. I started this mess. If he has to put up with the fallout by virtue of being all but shackled to me, then I'm going to look out for him." Potter's hair stuck out at odd angles, even more so than usual, and the skin around his thumbnail was bitten to bleeding. His robes were a matching scarlet, and made Snape smirk. They only made an appearance when Potter wanted to seem threatening. 

How anyone under 5'7 could be threatening, Snape didn't know, but the robes did add a certain something.

"Sorry if that doesn't fit in with your plans. You're welcome to try and arrest us. I will scream bloody murder and eventually have your job, sir, but you're certainly welcome to make the attempt. Oh, and if he dies as a result of anything you do, you will pay for it. You're welcome to save that in a pensieve. That's a threat."

The Captain (of what, Snape had no idea, nor did he care) turned a contrasting shade of red. "If they decide—"

"I've been in touch with an old friend. Kingsley Shacklebolt. I believe you've met? He promises me that the Minister of Magic himself will have no problem with your decision to extend a little leeway to us, in favor of dedicating all your resources to pursuing the possible criminals within your own department."

The Captain of a Department of Something Somewhere took a slow breath, let it go between clenched teeth, and moved for the door. "Fine, Potter. Fine. Get away with whatever you like. Rules have never stopped you before. But mark my words. One day—they will. They'll stop you like a brick wall." The Captain slammed the door behind him.

"Who needs daytime telly?" Snape croaked.

"Yeah." Potter laughed shakily. He rubbed his palms against his knees. "How do you feel?"

"Well enough, I suppose. Why?"

"Not only did I just threaten a superior, but I haven't talked to Kingsley since the Order of Merlin ceremony a couple of years ago. Someone might figure that out soon. If you're okay, we should get out of here." Potter rose from the foot of the bed and moved to a little closet area. "I brought you a few things from the house, some clothes and a robe to wear. Dark gray. Couldn't find black, sorry."

Severus sat up. His back was stiff. "I don't wear robes anymore, Potter. Robes are for wizards."

"Yes, you do."

"Oh?" He took his feet carefully.

"You can't hide a wand in a plain shirt." Potter tossed the robe at him.

He caught it. Snape arched a brow.

Potter turned away. "I'll be right out in the hall while you change."

In the pocket. Short. Yew. It hummed in the palm of his hand.

"I didn't see it, understand? Nobody can," said Harry. He looked away and went into the hall.

XXXXX

After the excitement, he expected a harried flight from St. Mungo's. In reality, they walked out of the room, took a staircase down, and strolled straight past security out a side door into a relatively clean alley, then out to the street. Witches and wizards in business attire littered the sidewalks. A few families window-shopped.

Severus paused at the exit from the alley. There were people out there.

"Come on," said Potter, jogging his elbow.

Severus forced himself to keep walking.

"It occurs to me that this should've been more difficult."

"I cleared the way a little." Potter tried taking hold of his elbow again.

"I'm hardly infirm, and I'm not going to just dash off. I wouldn't know where to go. Half the old Order safe houses are picnic stops."

"I don't want us to be separated. You make a good human shield," he added. "Plus, I haven't figured out how to do a side-along apparation without hanging on to the other person."

Snape frowned. "It's nothing but focus."

"I'm blind; maybe that's it."

A few people on the street did double-takes as they passed. "Where are we going, Potter?" He felt very exposed.

"To a safe apparation distance. It isn't far."

"But where, from there?"

"Look, it—I promise, it's a safe place."

"If we're apparating straight before the bloody Wizengamot, Potter, you're going to let me know." He yanked his elbow free. "I wonder—have you stopped to think what sort of legal repercussions—"

"I'm handling it, okay? I'm handling it."

"You could be handling me to my death, Potter—let go of my arm before I rip one of yours off and throttle you with it! The war is over; my debts are paid." Merlin, it seemed like everyone was staring. "If you want my neck on the block during this little bout of Auror versus Auror, you're going to bloody well tell me what you've got planned."

"All right! All right, lower your voice. Please." He had the good sense to put his hands in his pockets. "Truth is—I didn't expect this to happen. You have every right to be angry."

"I am angry."

"Yeah, and you have every right to be—it's my job to look after you, and I'm utter crap at it."

"You expect to be dissuaded?"

"No. It's a statement of fact. Look. I'm trying. It's just that it's hard to think of you as a person," Potter blurted. "For a long time you were just a git. Then you were bloody-minded but on our side, then you were a traitor, then you were good after all but arguably dangerous. No offense."

Severus arched a brow.

"At the same time, you're the one who saved Ron and Hermione. Even Ginny. Even Remus, when you hated him. Even me—after you didn't have to."

"Spare m—"

"Only there's still that bit with my parents, and I have to hate you for that. Don't I?" He picked at his scar. "Then I see you making tea in your socks and I can't reconcile that with the cold-blooded killer I'm supposed to be guarding. Sometimes I almost start feeling sorry for you, then I remind myself of who you used to be, then I act like a git because the you that used to be was pretty awful." He threw up his hands. "But the you that folds laundry isn't the same one who used to take points for no reason, who isn't the same one that made friends with the wrong people and told them something bloody stupid that helped get my parents killed, I don't think." Potter finally paused for a breath. "Then I think, well, if my parents weren't dead, maybe all the Longbottoms would be, and maybe Voldemort would still be rampaging through Europe, and maybe my parents would be dead later anyway and I'd never have met Ron or Hermione—"

Snape blinked.

Potter's expression hardened. "It's—a lot of people are alive because things worked out the way they did."

"Are you coming to a point?" Potter was drawing spectators.

He frowned. "Things happened the way they happened. I didn't really mean for it to work out like this. I was mad about it for a long time. Because of it, I didn't always treat you as well as I should've. So—I guess I'm saying I'm sorry about that. Especially in light of you not holding it against me enough to bother defending the house and risk taking a bunch of curses meant for me—right now, I'd like to go on record as saying I'm going to make an effort to be…" Potter searched for a word. Apparently, he'd run through his daily allotment.

"A kinder, gentler jailer?"

"Nicer." Potter looked a bit glassy, the way he did when he needed a cup of tea and a nap. "I mean, you're a person, not a tiger."

"A tiger."

"I sometimes think of you as a tiger. That they've de-clawed and put in my house. Um. I've gone a little off-topic. I hope that all wasn't terrifically insulting, because I didn't mean for it to be."

"No, please, I enjoy being reduced to the sum of my crimes." He wasn't sure what to think about the tiger business. At least Potter wasn't comparing him to monkeys.

Severus really wasn't sure what to think of the rest of it. What he'd basically said was, 'You were a horrible person, but now you're just pathetic and I pity you,' right? Except that he'd then basically said, 'I'm grateful, an emotionally stunted idiot, and I'm going to be nicer.'

He thought for a moment. 

No. No, he wasn't insulted. No more than usual, anyway.

Potter flushed. "We should get out of here." He took Snape's elbow again.

Severus let him. It seemed easier than hearing another disjointed monologue. "You and Albus Dumbledore, Potter, I swear."

"What?"

"Nothing."

XXXXX

Tall, cool grasses brushed their calves. The sunset blazed purple, pink, and gold.

"It's over the hill."

It didn't hit him between hospital walls and in the crush of milling passers-by, but it struck him then. The openness. The way the sky stretched tight as a drum skin from horizon to horizon.

He could hex Potter and go. It would be the work of a moment. He could stretch out and spend the night under a warming charm under the stars. He would disappear. He'd done it before.

And then what? To where? For how long?

"This way," said Potter, as if he were tugging a leash.

Severus followed.

Just over the top of the hill sat a squat cabin with a smoking chimney. Potter kept watch, his wand outstretched, and moved silently to the door. He knocked twice.

The door swung open.

Potter beamed. "Hullo, Ron." There was an embrace that involved a lot of back-slapping.

Severus averted his gaze and sighed.

The two pulled apart. "Professor Snape," acknowledged Ron.

"Weasley," he said, tipping a nod.

The redhead pasted on a smile. "It's good to see you." He cleared his throat. "Come in. We'll get you both settled." Weasley had put on a bit of weight since the war. Not that much, but enough to make Severus squint to picture the lighter young man he'd pulled from the school's wreckage.

"We?" asked Potter.

"Surprise!" As Potter entered, he was gifted with another hug from a decidedly bushy-haired witch.

"Hermione!" Another hug. "What are you doing here?"

"I forced Ron to tell me where he was going."

"She's not kidding when she says forced."

He let them chatter away. Severus remained below the step, a silhouette against the approaching night. He felt in his pockets. Potter had included a half-smoked packet of cigarettes and a small box of matches. He lit one and stared at the flame on the match before flicking it out, leaving purple pinpricks of afterimage behind his eyelids.

Granger approached him. "Professor Snape?"

"I haven't been a Professor for some years," he answered. Oh, bugger, they were all staring at him now. "What?" he demanded.

"Thank you," she said.

He was ready to nod if that was all, but Granger couldn't leave anything be.

"I never got a chance to say it then, and I know it's been a long time, but I wanted to tell you that I—"

"Didn't we already have this conversation, Miss Granger?"

To her credit, she didn't shrink back. "It was a little one-sided. And it's Mrs. Granger-Weasley now, unless you'd like to call me Hermione." She smiled. "I just wanted to say—"

"Your speech in front of the Wizengamot was eloquent enough, Mrs. Granger-Weasley. Potter," he called, "if it's a choice between running a Weasley gauntlet or fending off your enemies and smoke fumes—let us go home."

Potter scowled. "Don't be rude to my friends."

"Then tell them I don't require their validation so much as a meal and a comfortable place to sit and wait for my impending death." He swept into the cabin with his cigarette still lit and ignored the part of him that prized dignity over melodrama.

"He's cranky," said Potter. "Let's talk outside."

Severus sneered at the closing door, barely noted the blue-and white tiled kitchenette, frowned at the bathroom, dismissed the living room, and sighed as he found a bedroom. He flopped onto the mattress, kicked off his shoes, and pulled at the buttons on his robe. When the garment no longer strangled him, he paused.

His knuckles were still bruised. 

Severus snorted. He wondered if the attending Healers had been flinching when they examined him, and if Potter standing in a corner growling like a terrier was the only thing that'd kept them attending.

Killer.

Severus Snape, the Death Eater. Thirteen witches and wizards. Thirteen! In one go.

Never mind that they were Death Eaters, and that he'd blasted out the support pillar under the balcony they'd been using as high ground. Never mind that he'd saved as many lives as he'd snuffed out—or thought he had; there would never be an exact accounting. Never mind that Potter had been the one to kill the Dark Lord—he'd only stood nearby, assisting. Never mind that Albus Dumbledore had begged Severus to kill him.

He was a dangerous criminal.

He'd been shackled in his cell. They'd recast the silencing charms every hour or so, sometimes more when the guards were nervous. He wasn't permitted visitors.

The elder Malfoys were executed. First Lucius, who died spitting that he would be saved, mad at the very end. Then Narcissa, trembling, weeping, and pleading for mercy, batting her long lashes. She blamed everything on her husband. The courts didn't feel remorse absolved her, though she seemed genuinely sorry. Severus thought she'd been genuinely sorry her ambitions had been spoiled.

Draco, given his options, chose to fully cooperate. They said the sum total of his memories lay in a pensieve in the Department of Mysteries. The RAC (Reassignment Action Committee) had given him a new identity (as a muggle, no less) and had tucked him away in whatever black hole had swallowed the other mind-wiped war criminals.

Others went to the newly constructed Newtgate Prison. It was Dementor-free, but apparently that was all it had to recommend it.

His trial had been pushed back week after week, until the guards had become so bold as to tip his food trays onto the dusty ground without so much as a cry of 'whoops!'

He hadn't reacted well to that.

Severus heard the faint sound of the cabin door opening and closing. 

"Snape?"

They'd speeded his trial after the incident with the guards. He'd stood mutely before the court and only half-listened to the proceedings. He figured it was a foregone conclusion. Many spoke against him. A few spoke for him.

"Bloody Lupin," he muttered.

"Snape?"

"Follow the smoke, Potter," he called. Severus didn't particularly remember Granger's defense. It had gone on at some length.

A shadow appeared in the doorway. "Why are you in here in the dark?"

He did remember Potter at the trial, mostly. He'd been brief. 'I hate Severus Snape,' Potter had begun.

"I'm tired."

"Still? You slept half the day."

"I had a busy morning."

Potter nodded thoughtfully. "You don't have to hide in here. They're off, now. I asked them to pick up some dinner for us."

"Not pumpkin juice and crisps."

A smile cracked. "We're not students anymore. They brought Chinese. Put out the cigarette," he said, and walked away.

The speech was relatively uninteresting. Potter wasn't the type to move the masses with words. Quickly, his impassioned argument had devolved into petty bickering with the court. The Wizengamot remained firmly opposed to any kind of prison sentence after what had happened to the guards. They also thought he'd break out, then posed the theory that he'd prove a bad influence on other inmates. Someone even suggested Severus might find and train his own dark army within the prison.

Then Granger had refused to stay quiet, and Lupin was there in his least shabby overcoat, and so many voices raised and wands pointed that it had taken half a bloody hour to calm everyone.

Wherever Gryffindors opened their mouths, a circus followed.

"Oi! I'm not putting warming charms on the food!" called Potter.


	3. Chapter 3

They ate.

"I suppose you want to know the story?" Potter sighed as if he'd rather gouge out his eyes than repeat it.

"Do I know anyone involved?"

"…Me."

He decided to let Potter off the hook. "Then no, not really," said Snape. "I think I've formed a serviceable picture. Context clues, you know."

"Oh." Potter nodded. The lines on his brow smoothed. "It's boring anyway. …This is good."

"Could use a bit more kick."

"Yeah. Still. Pretty good, for take-away."

Potter had lied. There was pumpkin juice. And butterbeer.

"Pick your poison. Don't say cyanide," Potter added.

He chose a bottle of butterbeer. "I'd rather have a good scotch."

Potter's head shot up. "You drink?"

"I have. In the past." He arched a brow. "Many people are fond of a drink, Potter."

He blinked. "You never told me you wanted alcohol."

"Four and a quarter years to break the cigarette barrier. I'm pacing myself on the liquor."

"You don't need to. You could just tell me when you want something. You don't tell me when you want something."

"I was under the impression we'd only recently moved into the cease-fire period."

Potter shrugged. "No, I… I guess. …I've only ever had champagne."

"What?"

"Alcohol. I've only ever had champagne. It's all they serve at Ministry functions. The champagne. Well. No. It's all they serve apart from the bar, but I never go to the bar because the second I did that, it would be in the papers—Harry Potter's a lush!"

"Can't have that," Snape drawled.

"But everything's in the papers anyway. I don't know why I bother." He sighed.

"Neither do I."

"What?"

"Know why you bother."

Potter blinked.

"Keeping up appearances. Single-handedly blowing the whistle on corruption." He shook his head.

A scowl answered. "Someone's got to do it."

"Keep doing it, Potter, and you'll be fighting until the day you die." Snape tipped back the bottle, slaking his thirst in long, slow gulps.

Potter stared for a moment before answering. "Well." He shrugged. "If I have to."

"There are few things as fatal as an overdose of nobility," said Severus.

An answering sneer. "What would you know about nobility? Call yourself what you want, Snape; I never thought you were much of a Prince."

"Potter. That was almost barbed. We may make a thoroughly unsociable git out of you yet."

"Nah. I'll be dead before then."

"If you keep passing out wands like party favors."

Potter shoveled another forkful of noodles into his mouth. "I have no idea what you're talking about." He said it very stiffly.

"Ah. Is that the way we're playing the game?"

"What game?" said Potter. He paused. "I do think it's stupid to keep a wand away from someone who's had ample opportunity to escape before now. Buckets of opportunity. Great mountains of opportunity. Remember that time I fell asleep on the couch? Wand? Still there, hours later. One night I left my invisibility cloak and broom by the front door, left my wand on the bathroom sink—you got up, made breakfast, nothing was touched."

Snape slurped a spoonful of soup. "September fourth. And let's not forget the galleons in your robe pocket, left conveniently near the front door."

Noodles fell from Potter's fork. "Wonder how that could've happened."

"Indeed. Lapse in judgement, or simply careless?" he suggested. "I wonder if the wards were down as well…?"

Potter dug in the carton of noodles. "I hate water chestnuts."

XXXXX

There were books, which Potter perused. "Some of these are really old."

Severus knelt in front of the television. There was no clicker, only a dial. He turned it.

"Snape?"

"Who does this belong to?"

"What? Oh. Bill bought this place for Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. Sort of a vacation home. They don't use it much, though."

"No, the Telly."

"One of Mr. Weasley's projects. Why?"

"It has two hundred channels."

"This is good?"

"This is good," said Snape, nodding.

"How much television do you watch?"

"Enough for it to be worryingly unhealthy."

"Don't sit too close. You'll ruin your eyes," said Potter, through a jaw-cracking yawn.

"I'll lose the lungs first. Go to sleep, Potter. I promise not to flee in the night."

"Um."

"What?"

"You've noticed there's only one bedroom."

Severus cringed. "Tell me this isn't the official Weasley Second Honeymoon Bungalow."

"Um."

He shuddered to the soles of his feet. "Ugghh. Take the bedroom, Potter."

"It's not that bad."

"It's disgusting." He shuddered again, just for fun.

"Best I could do on short notice. …If I take the bed, what'll you do?"

"I'll manage." There was a couch and a blanket. He'd had worse. Something occurred to him. "Potter. How did you know to arrive when you did? Did you know they'd be coming?"

He shrugged. "They tripped the alarms."

"You kept the floo alarmed?" He wasn't particularly surprised.

"Yeah. Sorry we were late. It was on a delay."

"Why a delay?"

Potter rubbed at his scar. "Look, Snape. I…" He sighed. "You have a choice. It's not a good one, but it is a choice. You can stay here, or you can go."

"And live as a fugitive."

"I said it wasn't a good one."

"Is that what this is, Mister Potter?"

"What?"

"Can't wait for a case review to get rid of me? Have to plant wands for them to find?" Telly flickered, casting the room in blue and white dancing shadows. "Been hoping I'll be a good little owl, and fly away if you leave the cage open?"

Potter bit at his thumbnail. "No, I…"

Severus could see his throat working, as if the words were stopping just short of being voiced. "Joke's on you, Potter. I don't have anywhere else to go." There was a travel program on. Some lush jungle full of brightly-colored birds. He leaned back on his hands.

Potter hadn't moved.

He watched the guide gesture to one bird after another, pointing out interesting facts about each that really didn't seem very interesting.

"I have this dream, sometimes, that I come home from work. I'm really hungry, but there isn't any dinner made. I go upstairs to change and I hear the water running—so I go to see what it is and you're dead on the bathroom floor. It's always the bathroom floor. I don't know why."

Snape stared at the telly. The birds were parrots. He'd never liked parrots. Too flashy.

"It's not that I want you to go. I don't want you to go. But I'd rather you go than…" Potter sighed. "And you need the wand. It's stupid for you not to have one. The only people who should be worried about you having a wand are the ones who deserve what you'd do to them."

Severus switched off the telly. "Thank you for having such faith in my homicidal tendencies."

He shrugged one shoulder. "Welcome." Potter didn't make a move to go to bed.

"…Smoke?" Severus offered.

Another partial shrug. "Yeah, okay."

XXXXX

They sat and smoked on the porch. Potter made a decent effort, but he mostly sat and watched the embers glow. "I know why you like this," he said. "I wish there were fireflies. Probably too cold for fireflies. I like fireflies." He flicked the end of the cigarette. "I don't know why anyone would want to catch fireflies."

Potter was set on permanent ramble. It didn't particularly bother him, though. "They're pretty, I suppose."

"They're prettier when they're flying. Did you ever catch fireflies? When you were—younger?"

Severus shook his head.

"Me, either. I'd probably feel too silly to do it now."

Their knees almost touched.

"I'll sort out the house tomorrow. They'll probably need me for questioning, or… you know. To scream at." Potter took a small puff. "I kinda hate my job. I'm not very good at it. I sign things and I wave. Gets hard to smile by the end of the day."

"Quit."

Potter looked at him, then didn't.

They ended up sleeping on opposite sides of the mattress, with the pillows as a buffer between them.

XXXXX

He woke at six.

There was a fine coat of fuzz on his teeth and warmth at his back. Snape carefully rolled and angled his head.

Potter snored softly. Somehow he'd kicked the pillows away and had burrowed in at Snape's side.

So much for propriety.

He rose and padded out to the kitchen. There was pumpkin juice, butterbeer… "Where's the bloody tea?" he grumbled.

"Dunno. Check the cupboards." Potter appeared in the doorway, bleary-eyed and tousled.

"That's what I'm doing."

"We could transfigure some."

"Ugh."

"What? Tea is tea, isn't it?"

"I might as well boil a kettle of mothballs." Severus rifled through the motley collection of canned goods in the cupboards.

Potter opened the opposite cupboard. "Oh. There's coffee?"

"…Coffee." 

"Not sure how old it is. It's got caffeine in it."

He reluctantly nodded. "All right. Coffee."

With sugar, he discovered, it wasn't so bad. A different sort of taste. Earthier.

"I can pick up some tea. I have to go in today, or else they'll panic. I might be gone awhile. Will you be okay?"

Snape blinked. "Potter. I'm beginning to consider thinking about possibly becoming concerned about you."

"Just keep that thing you don't have close."

"The thing you absolutely didn't give to me?"

"Yeah."

Snape nodded and sipped. Maybe coffee deserved a chance.

"Ron might stop in. Maybe Hermione. Maybe."

"Never can leave well enough alone."

"She's good at it. Do you care if I use the shower first?"

Severus shook his head. He wondered how coffee-flavored butterbeer would taste. Probably disgusting. He thought he might try it once Potter left.

XXXXX

There was nothing to clean, no paper to read, he was on his second pot of coffee, and it was time for his soap opera, only he couldn't find it because there were two hundred bloody channels and half of them were filled with Gilderoy Lockhart's muggle doppelgangers. What sort of sadist gifted a telly with two hundred channels but no clicker?

"Bloody Weasleys."

He gave up on the telly and peered out the windows. After a bit, he went for a walk around the cabin, because apparently 'house arrest' only applied when Harry Potter said it applied. At about fifty meters out, he began to feel a prickle of worry that he was going to be caught, so he went back and had a cigarette on the porch.

The novelty of nature wore off quickly, anyway.

There was nothing interesting on the bookshelves. He didn't want to read about the intrepid wizarding climb to the summit of Mt. Sodding Huge, the anatomy of the invisible fruit bat, or a brief, 600-page overview of industrial gums.

The crack of apparation was almost a blessing.

He strode to the front door and threw it open. "Finally decided t—oh, no." He slipped his hand into his robe pocket, readying the wand for the draw.

"Oi, Professor Snape!"

"What, aren't you glad to see us?"

They grinned like jack-o-lanterns.

Severus stared in horror. "One reason. One single reason I shouldn't hex you both and bolt the door." He covered a wince as he said it. They couldn't know about the wand.

Fred looked at George, or perhaps it was the other way around. "We brought supplies. Heard you two were roughing it." Indeed, their arms were brimming with bags and boxes.

"How many of them are booby-trapped?" Severus didn't move from his position blocking the entrance.

"None!"

"We wouldn't do that."

Snape waited.

"…Not many."

"Not a lot."

"A few."

"Yeah, a few." They nodded.

"Which ones?"

"These are a bit heavy, Professor. Don't you trust your favorite students?"

"I never had favorite students."

"Well, we should've been them."

"We're practically the only ones who use their Potions training anymore."

"A fact that makes my continued existence even more bleak, I assure you," replied Severus. He waited.

"The non-alcoholic cider is actually about as alcoholic as the equivalent of firewhiskey and the muffins will turn your skin blue for twenty-four hours."

"And?"

They exchanged a glance. "Don't eat the cherries."

"Anything wrong with the tea?"

"No."

"Did you bring cigarettes?" A carton was produced. It passed inspection. "All right, come in."

XXXXX

"You should consult for us."

"No."

"That would be brilliant! He'd be a brilliant consultant!"

"No."

"We could do a whole potion-based line. You've got to know all the tricks."

"No. I mean, yes, but—no."

"We'd pay you."

"We'd pay you loads." They nodded.

"No." Severus blinked. "I am a prisoner," he added helpfully.

"Not really, though. You're with Harry."

"Prisoners work. We could do a kind of—work release thing."

"Oh, yeah, brilliant, that—bet he'd be cheaper than illegal immigrants."

A pause.

"That was a joke. We don't hire illegal immigrants."

"Students, now. They're where the cheap labor comes from."

"Not terribly reliable."

"No, not really." They shook their heads. "Shame. Wonderful instincts."

"So, Professor, what do you say? It'd be a laugh."

"I can think of nothing I'd enjoy less," said Snape.

"Great, we'll send along a proposal."

"And then another one after you set fire to the first."

Perhaps he was lonely for company, any company. Perhaps he was spoiling for a fight. He couldn't tell which. He was tired and restless at the same time.

They helped themselves to the leftover Chinese food after they'd unpacked. Severus made sure the muffins and cherries went into the bin.

"So. What's with Harry?"

"What do you mean?"

They poured themselves some cider. Severus abstained, in the interest of not being hung upside down by his ankles once their good humor had worn off. Or on, as was the case with pranksters as dedicated as the Weasley twins. They had made a career out of it.

Severus hoped their easy, upward glide through life ended in a very steep drop.

"He's not himself, these days."

"Who is he, then?" asked Severus.

"First there's all the Ginny business." George rolled his eyes. "You must've heard about that."

"Talk about your awkward Sunday dinners." They nodded to each other.

"And now he doesn't even come! We can't get him to a stockholders meeting, either."

"They weren't really meetings. We'd hand him a statement and then go try and crash all the posh clubs that only let us in with Harry along," Fred confessed with a grin. "Though he'd usually go home well before they'd throw us out. Didn't like the crowds."

"Why would you want to skip that?"

"Why indeed?" asked Severus. He lit a cigarette. Not because he wanted another, but if they got too close, he could accidentally burn one of them.

"He barely talks to Mum, either. You'd think someone died, the way she carries on."

"Lost a son, technically," put in George. Or maybe it was Fred. "He only ever talks to Ron anymore."

They looked at him expectantly.

Severus arched a brow. "I'm supposed to do something about this?" 

"He listens to you," said George. "Tell him to knock it off, start coming about again."

"And to retire! Go into the private sector. He stays Ministry, he'll be stuck in an office pushing paper the rest of his life. He could come work for us."

"You'd like me to counsel Potter against a worthwhile life in favor of frittering away his time designing and promoting bigger, better dungbombs?"

"Well, yeah."

"You say that like it's a bad thing, Professor."

Fred or George laughed. "Yeah, tell us how you really feel."

Snape let out a slow exhalation of smoke. "You're thugs in expensive coats. What's worse, matching expensive coats. Tell me, do you have independent thoughts, aspirations, or after all these years, have what passes for your brains become shriveled and fused into some sort of Weasley hive-mind?"

For a moment, the twin on the right looked slightly hurt, the one on the left slightly angry. They rapidly composed themselves back into smiles. "It's part of the brand, us looking alike."

"Right. It's not a fear of having to think your own thoughts." Snape inhaled. "You both used to panic when I separated your detentions. I found it highly amusing."

"No wonder Harry's gone spare, if he has to live with you," one joked. The other didn't laugh.

"Yes, that's the reason he's left. It couldn't be that your fabulously successful but utterly empty lifestyle holds no interest, that your mother is an overbearing old hag, or that your sister was already shagging her way down the ladder while Potter was buying the ring, could it? Of course not. You're such a pleasant family. Never mind the two who choose to live comfortably across the continent, and the One of Whom We Shall Not Speak." His fingers itched. Go for a wand, a part of him screamed. Do it, go for a wand. "Have you seen young Percival lately? Or has Molly had his room boarded up?"

Silence.

"Think I need another drink," muttered who Severus thought was George, and went into the kitchen.

Fred blinked at him, then smiled. The quirk of his lips held a touch of poison. "You're worse than you were in school."

Severus angled his head. "I was repressing it."

Fred laughed like Sirius Black. George stared from the kitchen as dumbly as Lupin.

Potter didn't look like Potter. He didn't look like Evans, either. He looked bloody furious.

Harry took in the room with wide eyes. "What are you doing here?" he demanded.

"You put me here," snapped Severus.

Harry hadn't been talking to him. "How do you know we're here? Oh, God, who else did you tell? Does the Prophet know we're here?"

"We have a little discretion," said Fred.

"We brought groceries," said George.

"You both have to leave. NOW." Potter, without realizing it, added a bit of wandless Sonorous to the end of his sentence.

"Oi," said Fred reproachfully, "what've we done to you? We just want to—"

"I'm not above Obliviating both of you," said Potter. His mouth drew into a thin line.

"We were at Mum's when Ron firecalled to ask about the cabin," offered George. "We just came to see you. No one else knows anything. Honestly."

"You swear." Potter frowned.

"Cross our hearts. Hope to die."

"You willing to make a formal vow?" Potter had his wand in his hand.

"Potter." Severus rose. "What is it?"

Green eyes flickered to Snape. "Some evidence has gone missing. They might not be able to make the original complaint stick." He shook his head. "They're claiming I invited them to the house, where you launched an unprovoked attack, which included a few well-placed memory charms that are keeping them from answering certain questions about the attack. Only one of them has any kind of record. Right now, it's a couple of family wizards up against that crazy war veteran and the hardened criminal he lives with." Potter bit at his thumbnail. "And the icing on the cake—a box of letters I'd saved is gone from the house. It was taken sometime during the investigation. The Prophet's going to crucify me in a late edition. I was just trying to do my job, and it's blown up in my face."

XXXXX

Severus opened the door. "I'm beginning to feel like the bloody aged butler. What do you want?"

The youngest Weasley pulled the scarf from her hair and leaned her broom against the cabin. "I need to see Harry," she said, and moved as if her entrance was guaranteed. "Excuse me, Professor."

Snape blocked her path. "Excuse you. Purpose of visit?"

"Sorry?"

"Why are you here? We've been fending off a Weasley assault all night."

"I need to see Harry," the young witch repeated.

"You've said. Care to expound?"

"I don't need your permission to talk to Harry, Professor."

Severus thought. "Mm… no. No, I'm afraid you do. Feel free to send an owl, but Master Potter is not accepting visitors." Snape managed to bow sarcastically.

"Pig keeps coming back to the flat," she said, folding her arms.

It took him a moment to decode this. "Ah, yes—while you are welcome to send an owl, we aren't actually accepting any of those, either. Good evening," said Severus, and shut the door.

A knock.

Severus counted ten, then opened the door again. "Yes?"

"Let me in, Professor." She wore a filmy, clingy dress under her cloak. Her makeup was carefully done. "It's important."

"I'm sorry; we're also not accepting cheap, changeable women at the moment. Good evening."

She stuck her foot in the doorjamb. She wore delicate, open-toed heels. "I'm not leaving, Professor."

Snape gave her his best withering gaze. "You really shouldn't wear heels around Potter. He's very sensitive about his height."

"I'll remember that," Ginny snapped.

"Do you know another reason you shouldn't wear heels?"

"Enlighten me," she said.

"A door can do this," he said, and slammed it on her foot.

There was a wicked, girlish shriek. It brought Potter out of the bedroom. 

"What? What is it—oh." Potter paused. His robes were half undone, his face red. He looked as if someone had scraped him out of the gutter. "Ginny."

Severus stepped aside. He ignored the furious glare and the muttered healing charm. He breezed into the kitchen and poured himself a small glass of cider. It smelled like apples; it went down like paint thinner.

"Harry. You should get a new bodyguard." She shot daggers with her eyes.

"I don't think that's going to happen. This one's saved my life a couple of times," said Potter.

Snape felt a sudden warmth he associated with the alcohol, and surreptitiously gave the Weasley a two-fingered salute while pretending to rub his eye.

"Fred and George tell you I was here? Or was it your Mum?"

Her eyes shifted from Potter's for just a moment, casting a warning glance at Snape. "Harry… I'd rather speak to you… privately."

Potter's left eye twitched.

Severus leaned back. That twitch faced a dark lord, once.

"You can say whatever you want to say out here."

"I know, but—I'd still rather talk to you alone." She took off her cloak. She had a bosom, but it looked more a product of artifice than natural endowment.

Snape wasn't impressed. To his surprise, neither was Potter.

"I don't want to talk alone. There's nothing else to say. Nothing that you haven't said, anyway." Potter retreated to the bookshelves. "What are you doing here?"

"I saw the Prophet. Did you—"

"Yes. Yes, all right. But I wrote them a year ago. Over a year ago. Today's front page is old news. Don't you ever keep letters you don't send?"

Severus used his old letters as fire lighters.

"Harry." She paused. Her eyes cut to Snape.

He arched a brow.

"Harry, if you'd told me those things—"

"I want the ring back," said Potter. His face was half-hidden in the shadows of bookshelves. "I know I said keep it, and if you changed your mind we could—" He cleared his throat. "I want it back."

"We could have dinner sometime. Try ag—"

"The thought of touching you makes me physically ill."

By the look on her face, it would've been less cruel to slap her.

Potter selected a book from the shelves. "I want my Mum's ring back. I'll give you the cash value in exchange, if you want."

Her hands strangled her cloak. "You should come to dinner this Sunday."

"I don't want to."

"We're still your family."

"Not the real kind, right?" He ruffled a hand through his hair. "We don't match."

"Harry—"

"I have to spend all day tomorrow trying to convince people I'm not really an evil wizard hell bent on murder and revolution. It's tougher than it sounds. Right, Snape?" Potter crossed quickly to the kitchenette. "Anything to drink? Tea?" He rooted through cupboards until Snape passed Potter his full glass. Potter tipped it back immediately, then choked. He coughed. "Augh. What is that?"

"Not champagne," Snape replied.

Potter coughed again. He turned back to his ex… whatever they were. "You should go home. Tell your Mum we'll clear out soon. Thank her for me." He set the glass down and crossed the cabin. "That's a nice dress on you," he said, and slipped past her to the bedroom. He shut the door behind him.

Snape didn't look at the youngest Weasley. She didn't look at him.

"Go ahead," she said.

"Pardon?"

"Say something horrible," she hissed.

Snape poured himself another drink. "I believe he's beaten me to it."

A short while later, the front door opened and slammed. Severus took a second glass out of the cabinet. He poured a drink.

Potter peeped in from the bedroom a few moments later. "Sorry about that."

Severus rolled his eyes. "Don't turn into Granger. Tonight, I'm going to watch telly and smoke. …Coming?"

The cider went with them.

XXXXX

Severus Snape couldn't decide which member of Monty Python he'd most like to have sex with. "There are the tall boys. Who are very attractive, though the dark-haired one seems a little… I don't know." He watched the scene play out. There was a cheese shop involved. "One of those people I'd probably detest if I met in person."

"Hang on a minute. Why is it cartoons now?"

"Dunno. Surreal."

"Oh, good. Thought it was me. Pass the bottle."

Snape did. "Now the blond? Very nice. Well spoken. Good arse."

"What?"

"Good arse. Lovely bottom." Severus reclined on the couch. His glass rested on his stomach.

"…Who? That bloke?"

"No, the tall blonde."

"He is tall."

"Everyone's tall, comparatively speaking. Compared to you," he clarified. "He's the medium blonde. Nice lips."

"Lips…?"

"Mouth to kill for." The things he would do to that mouth. "I need to be drunker."

"We're almost out."

"Pity." He stretched. The empty glass tumbled to the floor. "Didn't break. I'll get it in the morning."

"We've got to go somewhere soon. We could go to a hotel. Somewhere high-class. First rate. Where they leave the mints on the pillows. I could afford it. Put us up somewhere nice, for once. I'm a sodding hero, right? I can treat us. We could live like kings."

"That one… is too convincing a woman. I've never liked them feminine. Even if he wasn't, casually-speaking, I'd get him into bed and I'd only see the wig and fake breasts." Snape shook his head. "Now the little brunette…?" The bottle found its way into his hands. "Cheers," he said, and slugged straight from the source. 

"I'll bring back some sobering potion t'morrow. I don't think I've ever been this…"

"Sloshed?"

"Yeah. That's a good word. I'm going to eat something. Drink some water." Potter didn't move.

"I'm going to lie in bed all day and suffer," said Snape, smacking his lips. His face was numb. "I'm good at suffering."

"How d'you get good at suffering?"

"Not a skill. It's a talent. I was born with it." Snape watched the program. "The little brunette. …In a heartbeat," Snape decided. "Say the word, on my back, legs in the air, no shame."

"…What?"

"Well, he wouldn't do much damage in the worst of circumstances, would he? Probably the nervous type. In and out, quick as anything, then feels so guilty you can just… lie back and enjoy while he proves his adequacy." His mind appreciated the images. His body was limp. 

"Snape?"

"Mm?" He glanced over at Potter, whose legs were tucked up under him. He leaned heavily on the arm of the couch.

Potter's brows knitted. "You're hom… homos…?"

"Homosexual."

"Homosexual." He seemed proud that he'd got it out at all. "Gay, right?"

"You didn't know?" He nodded a bit. His head flopped.

"W—no. Not really." Potter shrugged. "You're not—with anyone. Just thought, well, not everybody's meant for someone. That's what they try to tell you, you know, but people all over die alone."

"When I die, I'm taking someone with me. Doesn't matter who."

"I'll come with you," mumbled Potter. "I like company. So long as they don't have red hair. 'Cept for Ron. He's allowed."

They stared at the telly.

"D'you really… really, I mean, for real… sleep… with men?" Potter asked.

"Sleep? No. I've fucked." He sighed. "Been fucked. Been fucked over."

Potter's eyes widened. "Over what?"

Snape sighed through pressed lips, mimicking the noise of a muggle motor boat. "Mostly? Hard, flat surfaces."

They stared at the telly.

"I could never do that," said Potter, shaking his head.

"A bed is preferable," Severus conceded.

"No, I mean… I could never do that."

"What?"

"Sex," said Potter.

XXXXX

He woke, still muzzy-headed. He was on the couch, but wearing a blanket. "Bloody internal alarms," he mumbled, and put his head back down. Fifteen more minutes. Then he'd make breakfast. He heard the sound of footsteps like drums banging in his ears.

"Hi," whispered Potter. "Still drunk?"

Severus slapped his cheek. "Yes, or that would've hurt."

"Here. Drink this."

A potion was pressed to his lips. Severus turned up his nose. "Bulk-quality sobering potion. I'd rather drive nails through my skull."

"Tough. We have about an hour to get out of here."

"What?" Snape opened one eye.

Potter was dressed in full crimson regalia. "It's eleven o'clock. There's a press conference scheduled at noon. Hermione organized it."

"What?" That was enough to coax the other eye open.

"You need to agree to let them pensieve out a copy of your memory of the attack. Will you do it?"

Snape's head tried to catch up. He tipped back the potion. Stale, but it worked. "For a rain barrel of hideously strong coffee."

"Coffee?"

"Cigarettes, liquor, coffee—I'm working on developing my bad habits."

"But you'll do it? You'll answer their questions?"

Severus rubbed his eyes. "I won't be polite."

"Good, then. Put this on and we'll go." Potter dropped a parcel in his lap. "Um. And you might want to cast a shaving spell. Not that you ever show much hair, but… you know."

"Yes, my lord." Severus tipped him a nod.

Potter froze.

Snape thought. Oh. "Sarcasm."

"Your majesty, I can ignore. Or, you know, someday you could call me Harry."

"What's the point? Everyone calls you that."

"Potter makes me think… you think of me as my father."

Snape opened the parcel. His eyebrows rose. "Potter. You're quite insane."

XXXXX

The effect was spectacular. 

Gawkers lined up four-deep on either side. Muggle and wizarding cameras flashed.

Potter, ridiculous hair notwithstanding, could walk like he was ten feet tall. He kept his eyes focused ahead. The expression on his face wasn't precisely a smile, and wasn't quite a frown. He kept his wand in his hand, too, which Severus supposed was for his own protection.

Of course, the wizarding world saw Harry Potter every day. Not often every day after the Prophet had apparently published some excruciatingly private material—

Merlin. He bet he knew some things about Potter the papers didn't. He wondered if he could get his hands on a paper.

Severus didn't have much chance to dwell on what exactly he could coerce Potter to give him in exchange for his continued silence, because most of the crowd's attention was fixed firmly on him.

Reporters shouted 'Professor!' and 'Master Snape!' at him. He was afraid they were going to try and touch him.

He'd left the top robe button and those below the waist undone. The sleeves came down past his wrists; the collar stopped halfway up his throat. Underneath, he wore a black shirt and black trousers. He'd left his hair down. It was longer than it had been during his school days, hanging just past his shoulders. The robe flared as his old ones had when he'd swept from one side of the classroom to the other, flapping and hissing like the creatures the children would compare him to later at their dining tables (when they all thought their hated Professor couldn't hear them).

He missed his old wand, but his new (and illegal) companion nestled quite comfortably in its concealed pocket.

The scowl came back easily.

"Sorry about this," said Potter. "I think part of it's been held over from your not-trial."

"I need a cigarette," muttered Snape.

"What about the barrel of coffee?"

"That, too."

"They've got a commissary. It's no good, though. Too many people, and at least three of them want autographs. There's a cart that makes the rounds. Think it has coffee."

The people parted like waters for them, leaving Potter a wide berth—and himself a slightly wider one. 

"Wow, I should walk in with you every morning. No one's grabbed me or anything."

They pushed through the throng. Potter flashed identification, hardly slowing as they passed him through. Had they wanted to, Snape was sure they could've strolled right into the Department of Mysteries without being stopped.

They threaded around a maze of corridors, ascended a back staircase, and entered a small hallway.

"We decided it would be best to go on the offensive," Potter explained.

"Is the other half of 'we' a certain Miss Granger?"

"Yes, but she's right. If we're taken in without our side of the story out there, it could be weeks of them printing nothing but lies about us. Plus, it would be a really good idea if we got a pensieve copy of the attack out of you."

"In case something should happen to my functioning brain between here and the Wizengamot?"

Potter's brow wrinkled.

Severus smirked. "Practical motives aren't necessarily ignoble."

"You don't talk like anyone else I've ever met."

He grunted.

The doors on either side of the hall were a steel gray. Potter paused at one, seemingly at random, and rapped. It slid open. "Come on."

"There's a press conference in here." Snape arched a brow.

"Not exactly," said Potter. "There's one downstairs for the general press that I'm taking care of. We thought it'd be better if you weren't so… exposed."

It was hardly the Department of Mysteries. It was only the second floor, the Auror Division, and his internal compass told him they were near the outside of the building. Blast through a few wards and walls, and he'd be out. He was hardly deep in the bowels of the Ministry. 

Still, a trickle of sweat formed between his shoulder blades. Floors above lurked the small cells where they'd held him the first and second times he'd stood before the court. He still had the stolen wand. If someone should decide to pat the Death Eater down, he might very easily see the inside of that cell again. Even Potter's firm denials of reality wouldn't save him a third time.

The room was small. It's floors were the color of the doors. The table was a glossy black. On it sat some sort of muggle electronic device—a tape recorder. A sheaf of parchment and a Quick Quotes quill lay next to it.

Two uniformed Aurors flanked a rosy-cheeked young man with curly blonde hair. He had the kind of smile that took either several hundred galleons of dental work or extraordinarily good genes to achieve. He stood when they entered and held out his hand.

Severus put his in his pockets.

"Hullo, Harry." The blond shook Potter's hand warmly.

"Hi, Ben. Severus Snape, this is Benjamin Heinrich."

"Call me Ben," he said, and smiled. He extended his hand pointedly for Severus to shake.

"You have a lot of teeth," said Severus.

"You brought the pensieve?" asked Potter.

"Right here." One of the Aurors wheeled a cart carrying the silvery basin.

"Everyone here will watch, if that's all right," said Heinrich. "The more, the merrier." He finally withdrew his unshaken hand, but didn't seem phased.

Severus wanted to yank one of his springy little blonde curls. Heinrich was pretty in the way that Potter wasn't; he had a strong chin, a tan, and looked like you could throw him across the room without breaking him. He was a bit on the short side. Perhaps that was how he and Potter had bonded.

How was it short men seemed to decide his fate, when they needed stepstools to reach the top of the icebox?

Potter put a hand on Severus' arm.

The blonde wizard's eyes caught the movement. They widened slightly, then relaxed as if he'd just catalogued it.

It was official. Snape didn't like him. "I'm sorry—who is he, exactly?"

"I'm an investigator," Heinrich answered. "I've—"

"He's done a lot of work with us. Used to be an Auror, now he works independently. I've mentioned him before."

"I'm impartial," the toothy wizard supplied.

"No one's impartial," said Snape.

The wattage of the smile dimmed somewhat.

"He helped exonerate Bill."

"A Weasley sympathizer? Color me unimpressed."

"He's not here to impress you; he's here to impress other people—which is what he'll do. He worked on a lot of the war cases."

"Which ones?"

"Nott, Crouch, Greyback, LeStrange," Heinrich listed, ticking them off on well-manicured fingers.

"Witches and Weasleys and werewolves, oh my," murmured Snape.

"Shut up," said Potter irritably.

"You shut up," he fired back.

"Sorry. He's prickly today," Potter explained to the others.

"Don't talk about me like I'm not here. I haven't had any coffee. Or tea. Or a cigarette. By the way, that potion was crap."

"It was fine. Don't be a snob," answered Potter.

"We'll have some tea and coffee sent in. Some sandwiches, too?" chirped Heinrich.

"Good God. Next he'll drop to the floor and offer to service us."

Potter slapped his forehead. 

"That was dramatic."

"You're being a git!" snapped Potter.

"You knew who I was when you took me in. Don't act so surprised about it." Severus gradually became aware of the others in the room.

They were all smiling. Choking back laughter, actually.

"Do you two need a minute?" Heinrich offered, the mirth apparent in his eyes.

Severus scowled. "Potter, if you'd do the honors?" He approached the pensieve.

"Pointing a wand at your head isn't an honor, so much as a pleasure," said Potter.

One of the Aurors actually giggled.

Potter touched the tip of his wand to Severus' temple. Potter's other hand rested on his shoulder.

Severus concentrated.


	4. Chapter 4

HEINRICH: How would you describe your relationship with Harry Potter?

SNAPE: I wouldn't.

HEINRICH: Would you say you were friends, then?

SNAPE: Not exactly.

HEINRICH: You looked …unnerved when he left. Would you rather he was here?

SNAPE: I'd rather I was elsewhere.

HEINRICH: You don't give very many interviews, do you?

SNAPE: Not since the end of the war.

HEINRICH: That long? I'm honored.

SNAPE: Don't butter me up. I'm not a scone. I better not taste Veritaserum. I can, you know.

HEINRICH: It's just coffee. Were you planning on lying to me?

SNAPE: No.

HEINRICH: Then why would you be wary of a truth potion?

SNAPE: Honest men have nothing to fear from the Aurors. We've already well established that I am not an honest man. Work the rest out yourself. Do you need a scrap of paper?

HEINRICH: So you're telling me that you could be lying?

SNAPE: I could be a giant mallard in a robe. I am not.

(The click of the tape recorder being turned off, then back on.)

HEINRICH: Would you say you owed Harry Potter?

SNAPE: Owed?

HEINRICH: Some would say he saved your life.

SNAPE: Some would argue that I saved his life, and all the lives of his extremely annoying friends.

HEINRICH: So Harry Potter owes you?

SNAPE: No. We're even.

HEINRICH: Now that you've dealt with the Aurors that arrived at his house, you're even?

SNAPE: We were even before that.

HEINRICH: But that would make you—uneven now.

SNAPE: No.

HEINRICH: I'm not sure I understand.

SNAPE: (A sigh.) They would've killed me as surely as Potter. It was hardly a selfless act of courage.

HEINRICH: You're sure they would've killed you? 

SNAPE: Yes.

HEINRICH: They never threatened your life.

SNAPE: They didn't come to steal the silver.

HEINRICH: Your response struck me as quite violent, considering. Some might argue unnecessarily violent.

SNAPE: I didn't survive by taking dueling lessons from the Marquis of Queensbury. Fight dirty, retreat while you can, think ahead, and don't spend all your bloody time casting some appallingly flashy gale spell when a shoelace-knotting hex will provide the same result. You people can be such children about fighting 'properly.'

HEINRICH: …There are three wizards in this room with wands. Two of them Aurors, one an ex-Auror. Could you beat us in a fight?

SNAPE: Yes.

HEINRICH: Yes?

SNAPE: Yes. I could.

HEINRICH: What makes you say that?

SNAPE: I know something you don't know.

HEINRICH: What's that?

SNAPE: If I told you, you'd know it.

HEINRICH: You've got me there. (A chuckle.)

SNAPE: You're not winning me over. Does that needle you?

HEINRICH: Do you like Aurors?

SNAPE: No.

HEINRICH: You don't trust Aurors.

SNAPE: Aurors have their reasons to mistrust me. Chief of which was the mark on my forearm.

HEINRICH: Will you show us?

SNAPE: No. There's nothing to see. A scar in the shape of a serpent and skull. This is hardly germane to the current situation.

HEINRICH: You live with Harry Potter, correct?

SNAPE: Yes.

HEINRICH: Would you say you spent a great deal of time with him?

SNAPE: I can hardly spend time with anyone else.

HEINRICH: So you do spend a great deal of time together?

SNAPE: We eat breakfast. He goes to work. He comes home. We eat dinner. We insult each other on weekends. Often, he's gone. I don't know what you'd call a great deal of time.

HEINRICH: Sounds like a cozy arrangement.

SNAPE: It is anything but.

HEINRICH: Is it sexual?

SNAPE: Pardon?

HEINRICH: Is your relationship with Harry Potter at all of a sexual nature?

SNAPE: Was your relationship with your mother of a sexual nature?

HEINRICH: There's no need to become hostile.

SNAPE: How much hair tonic do you use?

HEINRICH: Should I shut off the recorder?

SNAPE: My relationship with Potter is not 'of a sexual nature.' It has never been 'of a sexual nature.' My own proclivities aside, Potter is very uptight and very straight.

HEINRICH: Your own—you're saying you have an unfulfilled romantic interest in Harry Potter?

SNAPE: No, I have an unfulfilled romantic interest in patio furniture. Let's talk about that.

(The sound of the tape recorder clicking off, then on again.)

HEINRICH: Were you aware that yesterday's edition of the Prophet suggested you were Harry Potter's trained snake?

SNAPE: I was not.

HEINRICH: You think that's funny.

SNAPE: I think it rather hilarious that anyone, Aurors included, would have the bollocks to raid a house containing either Potter or myself, and then accuse me of being a dangerous person. Of course I'm a dangerous person; it's why I'm shut away. They should've known better.

HEINRICH: You think it was okay to set a wizard on fire because he should have known better?

SNAPE: Oh, no. That was purely an impulse. Heat of the moment.

HEINRICH: So there was nothing premeditated about the attack?

SNAPE: Not on my end.

HEINRICH: What were you doing prior to the attack?

SNAPE: Having a smoke in the living room.

HEINRICH: And when had you last seen Harry Potter?

SNAPE: Before the attack?

HEINRICH: Yes.

SNAPE: He left early. Had half a bowl of cereal for breakfast. Sometime shortly after six, I should think. Perhaps six-thirty.

HEINRICH: Do you consider yourself loyal to Harry Potter?

SNAPE: I'm not sure what you're trying to trick me into saying.

HEINRICH: You think I'm trying to trick you?

SNAPE: I think everyone is trying to trick me. Generally because they are.

HEINRICH: Does that include Harry?

SNAPE: Depends on the day. …Usually, no. He knows he can't, I think.

HEINRICH: You'd say you know each other quite well?

SNAPE: No.

HEINRICH: You live together. You have for years.

SNAPE: Yes.

HEINRICH: But you don't know each other well?

SNAPE: No.

HEINRICH: I find that hard to believe.

SNAPE: I find your hair difficult to believe.

(The tape recorder is turned off, then on again.)

HEINRICH: —straight to the chase, all right? Son of a… (A throat clearing.) You cook for Harry Potter.

SNAPE: Was that a question? Yes.

HEINRICH: You clean his house.

SNAPE: As I don't enjoy living knee-deep in swill and I detest house elves, yes. I clean.

HEINRICH: What else do you do for him?

SNAPE: You spend your weekends flashing women in the park, don't you.

HEINRICH: If Harry Potter asked you to do something, would you do it?

SNAPE: That would depend.

HEINRICH: On?

SNAPE: What it was.

HEINRICH: Judging by your record, Master Snape, you're the sort of person who I'd think might fall nicely into the role of servant to an extremely powerful wizard. You've killed for the wizard Tom Riddle, a.k.a. Lord Voldemort, and for Albus Dumbledore. You even killed Albus Dumbledore on his own orders. Do you deny that Harry Potter is a powerful wizard?

SNAPE: No, I don't.

HEINRICH: Considering your particular history, would it be unfair to say—

SNAPE: I don't take orders from Potter. I never have. I never will. Was that clear enough?

XXXXX

The toothy wizard—Bubbles, Severus was considering calling him—called an end to the interview before Severus did. The breaking point was probably the last insinuation he'd made about the uncertain state of the man's parentage.

Potter hadn't told him to be nice.

Bubbles had gone in a bouncy huff with the pensieve copy, leaving Severus alone with two slightly confused Aurors. One of them offered to get him some more coffee and beat a hasty retreat. The remaining one blurted to Severus that he had a wife and a child, and asked him to be gentle 'if anything should happen.'

Severus could only smirk. It was like the old days at school—the good days, when the students cowered but didn't make snide remarks.

Then, an odd thing happened. A visitor slipped through the door. He wore a clerk's robes.

The remaining Auror folded his arms. "This is a private area, John."

"But it's… you're…" He took a step forward. "You're Severus Snape."

"Whatever gave me away?" he asked, quietly reaching into his pocket for the wand—just in case.

"You're really not supposed to be in here," the Auror suggested mildly.

John the clerk wasn't paying attention. "My brother was in the war."

"Which side?" asked Severus. "The idiots or the lunatics?

"Ours, sir."

"The idiots." Snape nodded.

The clerk smiled like he'd made a joke. "He was Battle of Hogsmeade. Got Circe's Cross for it."

Severus straightened. "Oh. I see."

"That's all right. He wanted to be there."

"Who—"

"You wouldn't have known him. He joined up late. He wrote home about you and—Harry Potter. I just wanted to come in and say hello." He made an abortive move to hold out his hand, then pulled it back. "I don't… Hello."

"Hello," said Severus.

"You shouldn't be in here," said the Auror again, this time to the second impromptu visitor in the doorway.

And the next. And the next. And the next. All of them were wide-eyed and quiet as children seeing their first dragon up close.

"I'm going to need more coffee," said Severus.

XXXXX

His years-long absence from the rest of the wizarding world, Severus discovered, had afforded him some strange measure of status. It wasn't the blind adoration that Potter commanded, but between the attraction and repulsion lay a thread of respect.

Only a thread, but it was more than he'd had in a very long time.

He was a mythic creature. The Sphinx. Scylla. Severus Snape, the last Death Eater.

Careful, now. He won't let you touch him, but look! Look, before he's gone.

Word of his presence spread, along with the breach in security. If Potter in all his puffy, red-robed petulance showed up, he'd no doubt have a fit.

Severus didn't mind so much. Perhaps the attraction paralleled that of a free freakshow, but regardless of the reason, there were people. People who weren't Weasleys and weren't simpering—people who seemed not to actively despise him (though they'd probably rip him to shreds later at the dinner table).

He'd missed people. He'd missed other faces, breath, warmth, activity. Not that social activity had ever really involved him connecting with others, per se. He was one of those doomed to tap on the glass and never be admitted to the party—but how he'd missed looking in at the faces.

Mentioning that he needed more coffee/tea/a sandwich/a cigarette/a break resulted in many different witches and wizards in very official-looking robes producing exactly those things for him straightaway. A few faces were dimly recognized. Severus even deigned to sign a copy of 'Hogwarts: A History' underneath his scowling picture. Pensieve copies of the attack were wildly distributed after a former Slytherin, Asheby Zilch (who had the most incredible raw skill when it came to decanting, Snape remembered, and had once brought him a plate of homemade scones that were actually edible), had turned up and volunteered to help with removing and replacing the memory. He thought it might've been against some code somewhere to hand it about, but no one stepped forward to stop him.

Some asked questions. Some wanted to shake his hand. Some showed their teeth. Some simply stood in the corner and stared.

A courier arrived with a note. It was from Potter. It listed four names, and the time the owners of said names were taken into custody. It apologized for leaving him alone, said he'd be down as soon as possible, and that Severus could trust the Aurors he'd been left with.

They got him a more comfortable chair, since he'd be waiting.

Severus settled back. "Does anyone watch telly? The show 'Port in a Storm'?"

A small, red-uniformed witch raised her hand.

He sipped his coffee, and wondered if this was how Dark Lords happened. "What's gone on the last two episodes?"

She slid into a chair. "Kristine got out of the well!"

"You're kidding."

XXXXX

Potter's left eye looked suspiciously close to twitching. "We're going," he said quietly, and offered a hand.

For a moment, he considered protesting. Severus took the outstretched hand and let Potter pull him from the chair. The throng parted silently for the pair.

They didn't speak on the long march to the apparation point. Twice, reporters tried to approach them. One woman aimed a camera at them. Before she could snap a photo or six, confusion passed over her features. She ended up taking a picture of the floor before she wandered away.

Potter's wand hand gripped his hard. Remarkably hard. If one of them suddenly fell over a cliff and their hands were caught in that grip, it would've held.

"In any given week, how much wandless magic are you capable of?" he wondered aloud.

"Please don't start," said Potter. "I've had six people in my head today. I'm nothing but mush." His lips pressed into a line. "Lancashire broke into confidential files to get our floo password. He's the one you knocked down the stairs. They went back through his spells. He caved under questioning. Gave up the others. It's pretty much over. If they all plead guilty, there'll only be a hearing."

"You don't sound pleased."

"I should be pleased, shouldn't I? Four wizards are probably going to Newtgate, and it's all because they were lying on requisition forms. They have families. One of them, he's got two little boys at home. Three and five. …And you know? Call me naïve—"

"You're naïve."

"I don't think they would've killed me. I think they were going to try and bully me into retracting the complaint. They just panicked. Thought I was going to ruin their careers. Instead, I ruined their lives. …Yeah. I'm real happy," spat Potter.

"I can tell. You're crushing my hand."

"I don't want to get separated."

"You're going to fuse us at the wrist. …Potter. Potter. You look a bit… green."

"Let's just get out of here."

XXXXX

They popped into a field of tall grass. "Not home yet, then? Still the Weasley compound? Potter?"

The younger wizard suddenly bent where he stood and vomited bile. It took him a few seconds of heaving to bring up the small amount of fluid. Then he coughed, spat, and wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve.

"You didn't eat today," said Severus.

In response, Potter heaved again. Not much came up. "Didn't feel good," he said weakly, falling to a knee to steady himself.

"I suppose last night is to blame?"

"No, that was—that was fine. It was today. Think I need a lie-down." Potter knelt in the grass and spat. "And a glass of water. Or a watery cup of tea."

Severus paused for a moment before he lifted Potter by the scruff of his robe and set him on his feet.

"You're really strong," said Potter.

"You smell like vomit," said Snape, and prodded him in the direction of the cabin.

XXXXX

"He's not feeling well."

Weasley and Granger stood in the kitchenette. "He promised we'd talk."

"He's not feeling well. He's had some soup and I've put him to bed."

They blinked dumbly at him. Weasley looked a trifle alarmed.

"As my livelihood is tied to Mister Potter's, I feel I should make a modest effort to ensure his continued survival." Severus turned on the telly and settled on the couch. His hands shook slightly. Ministry coffee was a potent brew. "I'm not entirely oblivious. I do cook for him, you know. I assume he has mentioned that?"

"He said you scrub the floors," blurted Weasley.

"I no longer have students to do it for me." Severus narrowed his eyes. "Unless you'd like to volunteer." To his immense satisfaction, Weasley took a half-step backward.

"Professor, Harry can't afford to take the night off. Have you seen today's special edition? What the Prophet printed yesterday was bad enough—it's character assassination! It's biased and horrible and just—out and out wrong!"

"Harry doesn't go about threatening people. They're calling him a liar," added Weasley.

It was some program about gardening. "And? Do you think he wants to be the next Minister of Magic?" Snape asked. He knelt before the telly and tried to find something mildly diverting. "A future Headmaster of Hogwarts? The next Dark Lord?"

"Certainly not," Granger spat.

"Then cease the grooming. He's fulfilled his obligations to the wizarding world. If you're friends at all, you'll leave him bloody well be. Oh, look. Blackadder." Severus left the dial alone, turned up the volume, and sat back. "It's one of my favorites—the story of a cunning scoundrel hemmed in on all sides by utter morons."

"Profes—"

"Shh. Watching the telly," he whispered loudly, and snickered pointedly at the funny bits until they finally went away.

After the program ended and Severus was forced to search for something else, socked feet padded out to the couch. "Dunno what it was, but it sounded funny."

"It's over," said Snape.

"Oh, well. Maybe they'll run it again sometime."

Snape thought. "They do have recorders."

"Sorry?"

"Muggle recorders. Tapes, discs, and things. You record the program, then you can play it back whenever you like. Or you can order the program." Snape's eyes unfocused as he stared toward the flickering images.

"Do you want one?"

He blinked. Two boring men and two boring women were having coffee together in the current program. What passed for late-night telly wit caromed clumsily between the characters. Jokes weren't landing so much as falling like bricks. "Is that my reward? My pat on the head?"

"No. It's purely selfish." Potter had ensconced himself in the corner of the couch, wrapped tightly in a blanket. "I have a theory. If you get what you want, you'll be happier. The happier you are, the less you'll take out your horrible mood on me, which hopefully means I won't be so quick to be a prat in return. Better for everyone."

"Everyone meaning us."

"Who else is there?"

XXXXX

He woke up with Potter's hand in his own.

Severus frowned.

The younger wizard's lips were parted. A thread of drool connected the side of his mouth to a small puddle on the pillow.

His frown deepened.

Their fingers were caught together. A hand could fall against another hand. Hands might nudge against one another. Their fingers didn't lace, except intentionally.

Potter had smallish hands. The whole of him was probably stunted; if not from the abusive muggles he'd been thrown to, then by the foodless diet he adopted in times of stress. His fingernails weren't clipped, but instead neatly chewed off, leaving enough nail to keep Severus' from aching in sympathy. Potter's thumb was bitten to bleeding, as if he'd transformed a harmless habit into a grotesque need to punish himself. 

"Irritating prat," Severus muttered.

Like an unsuccessful killing curse, it was somewhat lacking in conviction.

Potter mumbled something in his sleep and held on tighter.

XXXXX

This is going to turn into a problem, Severus thought.

"I'm going to see what I can do to get us home today. I don't want to stay here anymore. It doesn't feel comfortable. Does it feel comfortable to you?"

In the beginning, there'd been the two of them and the house elf. The house elf hadn't lasted. All Severus had ever felt were beady, inhuman eyes trained on him all day long. There'd been threats of violence, and the ruddy thing had squeaked to Potter, who in turn had squawked at Severus. After a particularly bad row, Potter had sent the elf on its way—temporarily. He'd told Snape that he could do for himself if he was so particular, no doubt expecting to have the house elf back in his employ within the week. Snape had quashed that idea quickly.

"Didn't think so."

There was little that could motivate him out of bed in those days. Even less got him out of pajamas and his dressing gown. Proving Potter wrong, though? There was motivation.

"Snape?"

Picking up the slack for Potter helped even more to pass the trying first months. Severus had taken to a magic-less life like a trout to international finance. Every contraption in the muggle house seemed intent on proving him a fool.

There'd been open hostility between them. Mostly, though, Severus saw Potter only in passing. Aurors-in-training kept odd hours, and those that Potter kept at home were usually spent locked away in his bedroom. Despite fears that Potter would be parading a veritable slew of former acquaintances (enemies) through the house, he'd been left without Lupin popping up to deliver helpful pamphlets from Veterans Affairs.

"Snape? You all right?"

He cleared his throat. "Don't you have work?"

"Stayed late yesterday. I can afford to take an extra few minutes." Potter sat cross-legged on the couch, the blanket once more wrapped around him. "I could just not go. Take a long weekend. Maybe I'll be sacked," said Potter brightly. "The eggs smell good."

Really, if Potter were capable of looking after himself at all, they'd never have started eating together. He believed in bringing home take-away fare and shopped for groceries like—well, like a child. Potter bought Wiz-Os, super-pucker pickles, and prepackaged luncheon meat spread (which Severus promptly binned). There'd been the You Eat Like A Wizard Who Wants To Die Row, the Shopping List Row, the It's My Bloody Kitchen Row, and the Cabbage Row (a nearly epic, three-day standoff regarding the substitution of spinach for cabbage and chilies for peppers when Potter did the shopping). After a time, though, his tenacity had won out. He did the cooking, he made up the shopping list, and in exchange for leaving the kitchen in Severus' hands, Potter got hot, prepared meals—even if he had to eat them in Snape's company. If he and Potter weren't exactly up to sharing polite conversation, it wasn't quite the same as one of them having to skulk in his room until the other finished with the kitchen. 

Even then, he and Potter had often fought. Potter had often stayed out through the evening hours, arriving home just as Snape headed to bed.

When had it changed? When had he started arriving at every meal on time? Earlier? When had it started that Snape gave him a wake-up call? When had Potter started asking him how he felt, if he was happy? Giving him cigarettes? The books? Providing easy escape routes? Scheduling a case review? (When was that? He'd never said.) Severus had assumed the last were efforts to get rid of him so that Potter could go on with his life, but… what if it hadn't been that, exactly? What if he felt something more than disgust and grudging responsibility? Perhaps Potter had really started thinking of him as a big cat, skulking around the house, clawing the furniture. Potter hadn't had a pet since his owl met the unfriendly end of a curse—maybe Severus had been adopted to fill some of that void? And now that Miss Weasley was out of the picture, perhaps that attachment had become slightly stronger. Even so, how had this whole hand holding business sneaked up on him without Severus realizing it?

Potter was insidious.

"Though Hermione and Ron are bound to turn up eventually." Potter sighed and flipped disinterestedly through a book. "Hey. Want to leave the country? Become fugitives from justice?" He forced a laugh.

"Potter. Get a piece of parchment and quill. Write down the following words. Are you ready?"

"No."

"I. Quit. Now sign your name underneath, make several copies, and distribute them far and wide. Then go home and lock yourself in your room until you learn to ignore the opinions of the rest of the world."

"This from the man I found holding court in the interrogation room yesterday."

Severus stiffened. He pressed his lips into a tight line and went on making breakfast with what they had. The Weasley twins weren't ideal shoppers. They were nearly out of eggs, but still had a veritable feast of Cauldron Cakes in the cupboard. "You brought me there, Potter. You left me in the middle of the Ministry with an ugly little git who smiled before he thought—"

"I didn't mean it like that. I only meant—wait, you thought Heinrich was a git?"

"Yes."

"Everybody likes Ben."

"Not me."

"Why not? You just don't like anyone? Or do you only like an audience?"

He folded the eggs over. "Leave it alone, Mister Potter." 

"You used to give me so much grief over being a 'celebrity.'" Potter's voice lowered and thickened in imitation. "Did you know you were one? I get asked about you all the time. In all the interviews."

"I don't read your interviews."

"Of course not."

"I don't!" he snapped. "And nothing lately, because apparently you've decided I don't merit a copy of the Prophet in the morning."

"It's not that. Our subscription goes to the house," Potter replied.

"I'm sure all the issues I've missed will be waiting for me when we return."

"Um."

Snape's nostrils flared.

"I'd rather you didn't read them, actually."

"Let me guess—they paint you in a rather unflattering light."

"Not just me," said Potter quietly.

"Since when do you care what I think about a Prophet article?"

"Several Prophet articles."

"Several. How bad were they?"

"Bad."

"Let me guess. You're corrupt and on your way to becoming the newest Dark Lord, and I am the humble servant waiting to do your bidding." Severus divided the eggs, putting half on Potter's plate and half on his own.

There was quiet.

Severus turned.

Potter stood behind him. "I'm not like that, you know." He was absolutely serious. "I wouldn't do anything to you. You know that, right?" He nodded, as if prompting Severus to answer yes.

That Potter could went unsaid. Severus wasn't always consciously aware of Potter's power, but he knew it was there, lying just under the surface, waiting.

"Breakfast," Severus said, and handed him a plate.

By eight o'clock, and after draining a pot of tea, then a pot of coffee between them, Potter still hadn't gone anywhere but the bathroom. He wasn't even dressed.

"I could owl in," he said. "If you don't mind. If it's not much of a bother. Not that there's much to do, but—I could go get us some lunch. A chess set. Not that we've ever played, but if you want to play. I'm sure you'd beat me. Everyone can beat me. Ron, now, he's the one to beat at chess. Do you want to have a smoke?"

Severus stared at him. "Potter."

"I don't think coffee agrees with me. But you like it, though, right? They have those muggle coffee makers—or, oh, we could get one of those really fancy machines where you can steam the milk and make all sorts of drinks. Maybe we wouldn't need it. It's time we actually decorated the house. It's just full of—junk, mostly. I didn't want to worry about furnishing it. At the time I just told the house-hunter, 'Find something I can move right in to.'" Potter nodded. "We should fix it up."

"Potter." Severus opened his mouth to make a comment about the time and the coming deluge of redheaded visitors. "Explain the hand holding."

Oh. Well. That had been slightly unexpected, but he'd apparently discovered another way to stop Potter in his tracks.

His mouth opened and shut a few times. "You, ah." There was a pronounced swallow. "You said you didn't mind. If you mind, I'll stop."

"I didn't ask you to stop. I asked you to explain it."

"So you don't want me to stop, then?"

"Answer the question!" he barked.

Potter faltered. "Just… I can." His cheeks pinked.

Snape blinked.

"Most people, I have a hard time touching. At all. Even being close. It's like they're trying to... I don't know. Grab me. For some reason, it doesn't bother me with you. I guess because you're always around." He gave Snape a stiff half-shrug. "Sorry if it bothers you."

"I didn't say it bothered me. It concerned me."

"Concerned you?"

"Yes."

"Oh." Potter stared at him.

Severus stared back.

"So. Was that all?"

"Yes," said Snape. He felt suddenly awkward. "You should go in today."

Potter sighed. "I know." He brightened slightly. "Maybe I could sneak out early?"

"If we're staying the weekend here, we'll need clothes and supplies."

"I'll see about the house. We might get someone to come in and clean before we go back. It'll likely be a mess."

"No," said Severus. "I'll clean it."

"You shouldn't have to."

"Others won't do it properly. And do you really need more strangers touching your things?"

"It's not fair, though, is it, for you to be doing all the cooking and cleaning?"

"If I were capable of holding a job, I might agree with you."

"Some people get hobbies."

"I had hobbies. Unfortunately, they all require the regular use of the thing I do not have in my pocket. Is no one worried about it having gone missing?"

"They think someone took it as a souvenir. Like the letters," said Potter. "Just do me a favor. Save it for when you absolutely have to use it."

"You don't have to warn me. I'm hardly going back into lockup because I couldn't be bothered to pour myself a cup of tea."

Potter nodded. There was a pause. "I like your hair. You've let it get longer."

Severus choked on a mouthful of coffee.

Potter thumped him on the back. "Okay?" Potter's fingertips rested against his lower back, five faint points of warmth.

His eyes watered. "Y—fine."

"I'm going to get dressed. Go in. Get yelled at." Potter hung his head dramatically and slouched off to the bathroom.

Severus sat down.

After a minute, he got off the floor and moved to the couch.

XXXXX

It wasn't the compliment or the hand holding that worried him. What worried him was that at the moment following the compliment, he'd thought it a good thing he hadn't shaved his hair off after all.

Severus washed his face. He looked in the mirror. A drop of water clung to the tip of his prodigious nose. "You're not doing this. You're not going to do this." He dried his face. "You aren't."

His reflection suddenly smirked at him. "You're thinking about it."

"No, you aren't. Sod off. There's a reason I can't abide mirrors."

"I thought that was the nose?"

"Fuck off," growled Severus, and slammed the bathroom door behind him.

Trouble is, he was thinking about it.

Kristine was still recovering from her harrowing ordeal down the well. Charles wouldn't leave her bedside. Althea began the first in what would likely be a series of monologues—

He turned off the telly.

Hand holding, no matter what Potter said, was not a particularly platonic activity. Not between two grown wizards. Not while in bed together. It had… implications. How could Potter not know that?

Perhaps he did. He had to. No matter how dense he could be, Severus refused to believe that Potter had no idea. Now, he may not have an idea of precisely what he was playing at, but that didn't mean Potter was a complete innocent. Yes, he'd moved directly from one strict institution to another (with time off in between for the war), and he'd hardly the kind of experience most young men his age had—hadn't smoked, hadn't drunk more than a sip or two of champagne at Ministry functions, was quite possibly a virgin—

Blast it all, it could be perfectly innocent. He could be misinterpreting all of it. He had to be.

"He's a former student. You're sick. Sick," he told his reflection in the telly. At least that one didn't talk back.

A kind word or two was not an invitation to turn the whole relationship horizontal. Or vertical against a wall.

Maybe he just needed a wank.

Did Potter wank? Perhaps that explained why he was always so tense—

"Augh." Sex. Potter. No. Stop. Stop. Please.

Severus pressed the heels of his palms against his eyelids. In the resulting flash of purple-black, he could've sworn he saw Potter laid out on the bed, his scarlet robes open, his lips parted, his hand between his legs.

XXXXX

He buried his face in the pillow. He tried to imagine the sexual act that had christened the bed, and felt a bit buoyed by the answering lurch of his stomach.

The front door banged open and shut sometime later. "Snape?"

He didn't move. He was dead.

"Snape? …Snape."

"Found me," he muttered, fanning his fingers in greeting.

"Sleeping?"

"I want to die, Potter."

"Gee. It's been a while since you threatened to take your own life. Bad day?" The opposite side of the bed dipped.

"The worst."

"Sorry. Me, too, if it helps." Potter flopped down on the bed next to him.

Severus turned his head. "But you sound so… chipper."

"Two reasons. Wanna hear 'em?" Potter's top button was unbuttoned, leaving the pale column of his throat vulnerable to—

"All right."

"One. We get to go home. Two. I quit." Potter's face couldn't hold his grin.

He arched a brow.

"I did. Honestly. Exactly the way you suggested. Still have to get this last messy business resolved, but then I'm leaving."

Snape's other brow joined the one already raised.

"I had four people yelling at me. Not yelling. Aurors don't yell; they speak forcefully. Apparently I've raised all sorts of public outcry. Everyone's going to have to mind their steps, turn in properly completed requisition forms, that sort of thing. It's a terrible hardship. The Minister of Magic sent me a commendation and an invitation to tea; my supervisors locked me out of my office."

He snorted. "Wonder why."

"They told me they were going to transfer me to the field. Surveillance. Raids. That sort of thing. There were four new openings." Potter sighed. "I thought, great. This is what I wanted, right?"

"No?" A piece of Potter's hair hung straight into one of his eyes. Severus reached out and flicked it away.

Potter hesitated before he shook his head. "No. I don't want to spend every day bursting into houses, carting off somebody's Mum and Dad. No matter what they did. I'm sick of people being horrible to each other." He fell quiet for a moment. As if under its own power, his hand crept across the covers. "Recruitment is at an all-time high. They'll fill my slot in no time at all." His index finger hooked Severus' little finger. "Even Ron and Hermione decided they didn't want to be Aurors. Ron's in the strategic planning office and Hermione's off working for social justice for banshees."

"And other pitiable creatures she finds along the way."

"Right. Why can't I do something else, too?" Potter's smile faded somewhat. He glanced down. "Are you really all right? With the hand… erm, thing?"

"It doesn't bother me."

"Okay. Good. …I just wanted to make sure. You know. Not that I think you'd lie to spare my feelings, but… you know." He stared up at the ceiling.

"Careful, though, Potter. You could give a man ideas," said Severus.

It was like watching a sunset, the way Potter turned slowly red.

"Do you mean to give me ideas?" He smirked. Baiting Potter was one of life's simple pleasures.

The smile vanished. "I don't know," said Potter softly. He swallowed. "I'm not…" He abruptly pulled away and sat on the far edge of the bed. "That's completely inappropriate, I'm sorry. I'm—" Potter went the color of his robes. "We should pack up. I'll straighten out here, if you want to grab your things."

"Potter."

He stopped in the doorway. "Look, Snape, if it bothered you, you should've said so—this wasn't an invitation for you to humiliate me—"

"If I want to humiliate you, I have better ammunition. I said it didn't bother me."

"No, it concerns you," Potter spat. "What's the difference, I'd like to know."

"I don't find the thought of you holding my hand repugnant. It does not bother me. What does concern me, however, is that the last significant physical contact we shared was when I pulled your unconscious, broken body from underneath a pile of smoldering scales. The sudden alteration of behavior, Potter—that concerns me."

"Why didn't you say so?"

"You didn't ask."

"I bloody well did!"

"If you had, I'd have told you."

"No, you wouldn't. You're—you give everyone these circular answers. Half of them don't mean anything, half of them can be taken another way, half of them are sarcastic."

"That's three halves, Potter."

"You're that confusing! All I'm trying to do is get along with you."

"Why?" Snape rolled onto his back and folded his arms, letting the pillows prop up his shoulders.

"Why what?"

"Why are you trying to get along with me? Why has it suddenly become a priority? It wasn't before."

Potter fell quiet. When he finally spoke, it came haltingly. "It isn't sudden. I… You're staying. And you keep saving me."

"I didn't fend off the Aurors for your sake."

"Not that. It… That's what really got me thinking about it, but—the little things." He pushed his hands deep in the pockets of his robe. "Letting me come smoke with you. Being nice to me at dinner."

"I am not nice." He felt he should stick up for his reputation.

"You're not like you used to be, either. After the war, I was supposed to be Harry Potter, the Great Auror. I was supposed to pass my training, perform all sorts of daring rescues. I'd date Ginny, we'd get engaged, we'd get married, we'd settle down, have a house. A family. That's who I was supposed to be. Well, I can't do it, and for some bizarre reason, you're the only one who seems okay with that. I like that, all right? I like coming home to a nice dinner in a place where no one either talks down to me—well, you do talk down to me a bit—or asks for an autograph. And when you're not being a complete bastard, you know, you can be pretty… nice. I like it. It kind of freaked me when you got attacked. All that's supposed to be over." The cabin floor became fascinating to Potter. "They're supposed to leave us alone."

"They never will. Not either of us. Not while we live."

Potter looked up. "Thought you didn't like Divination?"

"I don't like doom-saying old bats." Severus thought. "Also, I don't like Divination; you're correct."

Potter chuckled. He leaned against the doorframe, his palms pressed against the wood. He had a nice smile. It wasn't all teeth and insincerity. "Do you see us going home sometime in the near future?"

Severus crossed his ankles. "I'm sorry, Mister Potter. I'm afraid I don't do magic anymore." He could feel Potter's eyes on him, and wondered at his finding anything on the bed worth looking at. Still, Potter had said it himself—he was blind. He imagined that if it was smudgy and run together, his appearance might be considered passable.

Not that Potter would ever consider him that way. He seemed to want to become bestest-ever pals, with a bit of hand holding thrown in.

"That's a shame. I hear you were pretty good."

"Once upon a time." He smirked. "Stop flattering me. It's transparent."

"Seems to work, though." Potter answered the resulting scowl with a grin and left the room. "Get packed!" he called.


	5. Chapter 5

They arrived home hand in hand, because Potter still claimed he couldn't apparate with someone unless they were touching. Severus had never stepped through the front door. He'd only opened it from the inside before.

The house felt familiar. Familiar was good. Going from the cabin to the house made it seem much bigger. Add to that the fact that it was uncontaminated by Weasleys, and it was like a breath of fresh air.

"It's like we've been away for ages."

"I'm going to cook tonight," announced Severus.

"Don't you want to—I don't know, get settled?"

"I am settled," answered Severus, and went to his kitchen. People had been through it, touching things. There were scorch marks left on the floor, presumably from where the flaming wizard had fallen before they'd put him out. The whole place needed a good scrub.

Severus shed his robe and hung it over the back of one of the kitchen table chairs. He found a spare elastic band in the odds and ends drawer and used it to pull back his hair.

In the doorway, Potter shifted from one foot to the other. "Do you want help?" he asked. "Because I could help. If you wanted."

His automatic response was no. He didn't brew collaboratively, and as a child, the phrase 'plays well with others' had never gone out on the comment card under his staggeringly high marks. "You remember the difference between chopping and dicing?"

"If I didn't, I wouldn't have made it through your class."

"Vegetables. In a bowl. Diced. Finely. You remember the difference between diced and finely diced?"

"If this turns into an exam…" Potter shook his head and took out a knife. "What are we making, anyway?"

Snape thought. "Don't know yet. Make sure nothing's gone off before you use it."

"…If you don't know, why I am cutting up vegetables? How do I know what to cut up?"

There was passable chicken in the icebox. "Pick something."

"Pick something? Don't you go by some kind of memorized, highly secret recipe index?"

"No. Pick something. Not the cauliflower. It's going brown, and it doesn't mingle well with onions."

"I was throwing it in the bin. …Could I ask where you learned to cook? Was it from your… your Mum?"

"No. Cooking was something only the women did." A touch of bitterness tinged his words.

In a rare moment of wisdom, Potter steered away from rough waters. "At school, then? Or after you finished?"

"Hogwarts was stuffed to the gills with house elves. I had enough trouble chasing them out of my laboratory. Forget preparing my own food."

"So, then… where did you learn to cook?"

Snape brought an armful of bottles and spices out of the pantry. "Here."

"Here?" Potter's mouth dropped open. "You complete liar. I thought you were practically a ruddy gourmet."

"Potions, food, it's all very much alike. Same principles."

"But you're just making it up as you go?"

"I usually have an aim in mind. Once you've got the basics down, the variety is near endless. You aren't dicing those finely."

"Are you telling me the truth? You really don't know what we're making?"

"Chicken?"

"Chicken what?"

Severus shrugged.

Potter blinked at him.

"You never cared before."

They arrived home hand in hand, because Potter still claimed he couldn't apparate with someone unless they were touching. Severus had never stepped through the front door. He'd only opened it from the inside before. 

The house felt familiar. Familiar was good. Going from the cabin to the house made it seem much bigger. Add to that the fact that it was uncontaminated by Weasleys, and it was like a breath of fresh air.

"It's like we've been away for ages."

"I'm going to cook tonight," announced Severus.

"Don't you want to—I don't know, get settled?"

"I am settled," answered Severus, and went to his kitchen. People had been through it, touching things. There were scorch marks left on the floor, presumably from where the flaming wizard had fallen before they'd put him out. The whole place needed a good scrub.

Severus shed his robe and hung it over the back of one of the kitchen table chairs. He found a spare elastic band in the odds and ends drawer and used it to pull back his hair.

In the doorway, Potter shifted from one foot to the other. "Do you want help?" he asked. "Because I could help. If you wanted."

His automatic response was no. He didn't brew collaboratively, and as a child, the phrase 'plays well with others' had never gone out on the comment card under his staggeringly high marks. "You remember the difference between chopping and dicing?"

"If I didn't, I wouldn't have made it through your class."

"Vegetables. In a bowl. Diced. Finely. You remember the difference between diced and finely diced?"

"If this turns into an exam…" Potter shook his head and took out a knife. "What are we making, anyway?"

Snape thought. "Don't know yet. Make sure nothing's gone off before you use it."

"…If you don't know, why I am cutting up vegetables? How do I know what to cut up?"

There was passable chicken in the icebox. "Pick something."

"Pick something? Don't you go by some kind of memorized, highly secret recipe index?"

"No. Pick something. Not the cauliflower. It's going brown, and it doesn't mingle well with onions."

"I was throwing it in the bin. …Could I ask where you learned to cook? Was it from your… your Mum?"

"No. Cooking was something only the women did." A touch of bitterness tinged his words.

In a rare moment of wisdom, Potter steered away from rough waters. "At school, then? Or after you finished?"

"Hogwarts was stuffed to the gills with house elves. I had enough trouble chasing them out of my laboratory. Forget preparing my own food."

"So, then… where did you learn to cook?"

Snape brought an armful of bottles and spices out of the pantry. "Here."

"Here?" Potter's mouth dropped open. "You complete liar. I thought you were practically a ruddy gourmet."

"Potions, food, it's all very much alike. Same principles."

"But you're just making it up as you go?"

"I usually have an aim in mind. Once you've got the basics down, the variety is near endless. You aren't dicing those finely."

"Are you telling me the truth? You really don't know what we're making?"

"Chicken?"

"Chicken what?"

Severus shrugged.

Potter blinked at him.

"You never cared before."

XXXXX

It was different.

Very different. But the same, in a way.

The telly light flickered blue. He'd lost all thread of the program. It was a film. Something where the actresses wore dresses that threatened to engulf them before they ran onto the moors because life was oh so painful. They'd been watching something else, but hadn't bothered to change the channel when it ended. Whatever it was. 

Potter was holding his hand again. He kept doing this thing with his bitten thumb, where he'd move it around a little, stroking the webs of skin in the valleys between Severus' fingers.

He'd never been in a position to hold hands with anyone. It was the sort of thing you did when you were fourteen and walking to Hogsmeade. You picked a girl, you asked her to go for a butterbeer, you held her hand, and if you were lucky, she'd let you carry her books while you walked her to class.

Severus never had any of that. Archie Plimpton had once kissed him in the loo. Then he'd shoved him against the wall and told Severus he was a dirty little liar and a poof, and had punched him in the guts. Funnily enough, most of his adult encounters amounted to the very same sequence of events, albeit with a bit of escalation here and there. Oh, and the part where Severus did something horrible in retaliation. (Mustn't forget that.)

"Are you tired?"

Credits rolled across the screen. "Mm? I suppose. It's that time, isn't it."

"It's the weekend. Don't have to wake up early tomorrow." Potter yawned.

Severus groped for the clicker with his unengaged hand and turned off the television.

The room went dark.

After a few seconds, Potter cleared his throat. "Could I walk you up?"

XXXXX

"Forgot about that."

"I saw it earlier."

Severus touched a fingertip to the jagged splinters left where his bedroom door used to hang. "They could've at least left the door."

"My comforter is gone, too. We'll get them back after they close the file. Until it's all over, they're evidence." Potter paused. "Are you comfortable sleeping without the door?"

"Not as if it kept anything out anyway." He shrugged.

Potter stilled. His eyes squeezed shut. "Oh, God. I'm so sorry about that."

"Wh—oh. That." He'd forgotten.

"I didn't mean to walk in like that, I swear. I never had before. Just that I couldn't sleep and I heard you moving around like you were still awake—I'm so sorry."

"Leave it alone, Potter. I'll make do without a door. Get to bed. Goodnight," he prompted, when Potter still hadn't let go of his hand.

"You could sleep in my room." Potter swallowed. "That is, we could trade. I mean."

Severus pried Potter's fingers away from his own. "No need."

"I'll get you another door," he said. "One with a lock this time. You know. For privacy." He stammered quickly onward. "And I've been thinking about what you said. I think maybe you could hold a job. If you wanted one. A lot of people work from home, and I was th—"

"Potter. Do you intend to simply darken my door all evening, or are you hoping to sleep with me tonight?" Snape folded his arms.

His eyes were like saucers. "What? No. No!"

"Really?"

"No! Yes!" Potter blinked. "What? No!"

"Then you're quite happy to toddle off to your own bedroom."

"Yes, of course."

"Which is why you're not doing it."

"You're still talking to me."

Snape stopped.

Potter swallowed. "Goodnight, then." Quick as a rabbit, he stood on his tiptoes and fairly lunged at Snape, who received a kiss on one sallow cheek before he realized what was happening.

XXXXX

"Come in." It was a honeyed knife of a voice, sharp and sweet.

The cabin was dark. His head almost brushed the ceiling. He bowed his head. "Sir."

"Ah, Snape. Just the man I wanted to see. Close the door."

He did. The cabin rolled and swayed under his feet. Lanterns moved with the rock of the ship, casting dancing shadows. He put a hand against the wall to steady himself. 

"Don't you think you'd be more comfortable on your knees?"

He sank to his knees. It put him just above eye level with the Captain.

"Take down your hair." The Captain sipped from a goblet. He reclined in a chair and regarded his guest from under green, heavy-lidded eyes.

Severus pulled his hair from its tie, shaking it out until it fell like an inky curtain around his shoulders.

The Captain shifted in his chair, pushing his parted legs slightly forward. His breeches clung close to his skin. "The shirt, next. Take off your shirt."

Shaking fingers plucked at the buttons. He ducked his head as the fabric parted.

"No. Look at me. Look at me," he barked. The Captain's free hand slid across his thigh, drawing Severus' eyes with it until his fingers came to rest on the bulge between his legs. He drew his fingertips up and down. "Keep going. You've almost got it."

He found the last button on his shirt, unfastened it, and pulled his shirttails free of his waistband. 

"That's right. Take it off. Good," the Captain purred, pressing his palm against his erection. "That's good. That's wonderful."

A little thrill coursed through him. "Sir."

"You know, Severus, you're quite fetching when you aren't scowling." The Captain smiled and set aside his goblet. "Come here. I think I'd like to kiss you."

Severus found it was easier to simply crawl the distance to the chair. When he felt the warmth of a hand on his cheek, he closed his eyes and tipped his face up.

It was soft. Sweet. The Captain petted his hair, smoothing it away from his face. He kissed Severus' eyelids, his cheeks, his nose. His hands settled on the Captain's thighs.

Fingertips trailed down the planes of his bare, nearly hairless chest. The Captain kissed his neck, his collarbone. Severus stretched like a cat.

He laid his head on the Captain's shoulder and sighed.

XXXXX

They replaced his door. The new one had a conspicuous lock. "It's not as if a muggle bolt would keep anything with a wand out."

"I know that. Still."

There were other improvements. A rug over the scorch mark in the kitchen. A pile of new linens. New robes for the both of them (though Severus mostly stuck to muggle dress). New books. A video player that took him three days to attach to the telly. Potter added wine to the shopping list.

"I'm thinking of putting in a garden. A house should have a garden. You think? We've got all this land…"

"If you want a garden, put in a garden."

"But do you want a garden?"

"I suppose it'd be something new to look at out the window."

Nothing had really changed, Severus told himself whenever something that could've been excitement (or maybe panic) threatened to overwhelm him. They kept to their routines. He woke, he dressed, he woke Potter, breakfast, cleaning.

He stopped watching his soap opera when Althea, Kristine, and Charles decided it would be best to try a threesome. Potter had come home for lunch and caught him shouting about venereal disease.

"I didn't know you had such a strong opinion," Potter later said, trying his best to make dinner conversation without turning the color of the beets.

"Do you know how many emergency contraceptive potions I've had to brew over the years? How many cures for 'mysterious' rashes and itching?"

"Do I want to know?"

"No. Children are innocent, my foot. …You disagree?"

"I think you're being a little harsh. They're just trying to figure things out. I mean, you must've… when you were that age."

"Must've what?" It was an especially good day when he could push Potter to a shade of magenta. 

"You know. Explored."

"I went all the way into the Forbidden Forest when I was thirteen."

Potter gaped. "Thirteen? You did—when you were—thirteen?"

Severus smirked. "That wasn't a euphemism. I was speaking of the actual forest." He took a sip of wine. "I lost my virginity when I was twenty. If that's what you were fishing for." It was easier to talk when they were both a few meters off sober.

"Oh." Potter gulped from his glass. "…Isn't that a bit late?" he asked.

"Thirty would've been early for me. It was a mistake. One in a long line." He smiled. "I'm getting maudlin. No more wine for me."

"Want to play a game of chess?"

Severus shook his head.

"Checkers?"

He arched a brow.

"Exploding snap?"

He chuckled. "No, Potter."

"Want to watch telly until we fall asleep on the couch, then pretend we didn't?"

"It's an exciting life."

"Bugger excitement," said Potter.

When they got up to wash the dishes, Potter gave him another kiss on the cheek.

Really, it would have been impolite not to return it.

XXXXX

"I'll be speaking full time. Except now I'll be working for myself instead of the Ministry. They said I can't use their speech. I said, 'Bugger your speech. I never liked it in the first place.' …Ben says hello."

"The blond git?"

"Don't call him a git. I saw the original copy of that interview you did with him. He made you look halfway decent in the Prophet."

"The Prophet. I seem to remember that. Oh, yes, wasn't it a newspaper? Didn't we get it here, once?"

"I cancelled our subscription."

Severus paused. "And why, pray tell?"

"I don't feel like supporting them anymore."

Snape nodded thoughtfully. "I see. So—I'm to get all my news about the wizarding world from the telly? Yes, I'll just turn to the wizarding channel."

"…You could borrow the wireless from my room. Maybe you can find a news station on it."

"I'll bet you dinner, Mister Potter, that the news stations on the wireless are mysteriously blocked." He took the cover off the pan.

"That smells good."

"Are they blocked, Mister Potter?"

Potter folded his arms. "Look, it's just for a little while—"

It would be quite dramatic, he thought, to pick up the pan and flip it into the air like a tennis racket, sending a lovely supper spraying across the room. Quite dramatic, he thought, but he stayed his hand. "Note my displeasure, Mister Potter."

"Snape—"

"Note," he paused, taking a moment to fill a plate with the requisite meal parts, "my displeasure." He covered the pans and left the plate on the counter. "Mister Potter. There you are. Dinner is served."

"Where's yours?" asked Potter.

"I'm not eating," said Snape. "Wrap up the rest when you're done. No need to be wasteful."

He had a cigarette in his room with the window open and the door locked, then went to bed early.

XXXXX

He woke up, restless, around three. The house was quiet. He crept downstairs, hoping Potter had saved the remains of dinner.

A pile of newspapers sat on the table. 

Severus flicked on the light and slid into a chair. He pulled the first copy from the stack.

After a few minutes, he got up, found a bottle of wine and a glass, and sat back down.

He read until sunrise and took a small break to use the bathroom before he returned and continued. The wine bottle emptied at seven-ten, which was when he looked up again.

Potter sat across from him. 

Severus hadn't seen him arrive. "They have pictures of my parents." His voice broke.

"Yeah. Mine, too."

Severus tilted back his glass, shaking the last few drops into his mouth. "I don't even have pictures of my parents." He shook his head. "…Don't you have to be at work?"

"I owled in. Do you want some breakfast?"

"Oh. I didn't—"

"Sit down. I'll cook. I can do eggs. Or french toast. Waffles."

He noticed that his dressing gown had been hung over his shoulders. He threaded his arms through the sleeves. "French toast?"

"That's the one I wanted. How did you know?"

Severus tied the dressing gown. His hands and head felt heavy. "There's a good one of Albus."

"All his pictures are good. He was photogenic."

The chasm of history yawned. Severus covered the image of the old man with the heel of his palm, as if he could press the smiling picture out of existence.

"Do you regret it?" Potter asked. He lit the burner with his wand.

Severus paused. He wasn't sure. "He was the only one I didn't fail." He felt for a cigarette. He'd left them upstairs. "I knew I was reviled, of course. Different to see it in print."

"The Prophet decides what everyone wants to hear and prints that. You sell more papers as a dangerous outlaw. Most people just think you're terribly interesting. It's all become a bit mythic." Potter cracked eggs into a bowl. He was practiced at it. Not a scrap of shell escaped into the mixture. "Best not to take it too personally. There's nothing you can do about it. Notice the difference from Thursday to Friday, the way they can't decide whether I'm controlling you or you've got me under permanent Imperius and I'm doing your evil bidding." His tone was light, but laced with bitterness.

Severus stared into his empty wineglass. "I don't think my bidding would be particularly evil. A few hexes here and there, all right, but I daresay it would be a lot of playing fetch and carry." The tip of Potter's wand invaded his field of vision and tapped the glass. After it was scoured clean, he filled it with orange juice.

"I'll fetch and carry for you, every once in a while," replied Potter, breezing away with the pitcher of juice. It almost sounded like he was trying to flirt.

Severus lifted his hand. Albus winked up at him. "May I have these, Potter?"

"The papers? Sure. Um. …There are some… letters. For you. They came care of the Ministry. I've put them through with the screeners who check my post. You know, to make sure they won't spit curses or explode. They weed out all the howlers, too. I can get them for you this afternoon. Unless you'd like to wait. I can bring them back from work tomorrow."

"That'll be fine. I've had enough literature for one day."

XXXXX

"Quite likely I'm mad. Quite likely he's mad. Kissed me on the cheek again today. Twice."

Albus nodded at him from the picture's hiding place in 'C is for Curses: An Introduction to the World of Underhanded Casting.' It was a weighty tome, and required reading for Aurors. Potter wasn't going to need it anymore, so he'd repossessed it. He clipped all the pictures he wanted to save out of the copies of the Prophet and secreted them away inside. He kept the one of his parents, and the Potters. Even one of a young Tom Riddle. He kept one of Potter, too, in blue robes. Then he clipped those of himself, and arranged them from young to old. They looked like different men. Impersonators, perhaps. Like someone had started a costume contest based on his life, and these strange, sad creatures were the finalists.

"It's like being invited to one of your teas, the kind where you keep putting out biscuits and making idle conversation, and all while there's something you're hinting at. An ulterior motive."

Albus beamed and smoothed his considerable length of beard.

He sat cross-legged on his bed and propped the book open between his knees. "…They're right, you know. I probably would kill for Potter. If he asked nicely." He smiled faintly. "I'm really a very weak person. But you already know that." Severus ran his thumb across the picture. 

He shut the book and set it on a shelf that was rapidly filling with carted-in muggle books. He hadn't read many of them. There was one with a cover that pictured a ship and a lighthouse. He took it off the shelf, tucked it into the pocket of his robe, and went downstairs to find Potter.

XXXXX

His case review came four months later. Granger was there. So was Lupin, who kept trying to smile encouragingly at him. Even the blond git Potter liked showed up.

His sentence wasn't shortened. As far as the Wizengamot was concerned, he was already getting special treatment and shouldn't be greedy.

Severus was just happy not to be frog-marched off to Newtgate.

"Hermione's upset. As far as I'm concerned, we won," said Potter later. "Once the paperwork goes through, you get to go outside. You can even get a job, so long as you aren't using magic to get there or to do it, and you're in by curfew. And Ministry approves it. Guess that's a little complicated. Still. If you want a job. You don't need to work. You know that, right?"

"Frightened you'll lose your help, now that they've lengthened my tether?"

"No," answered Potter quickly. He seemed distracted throughout dinner. "Are you thinking about a job, though?"

"Haven't even the faintest clue where to start looking. Don't panic."

"I'm not panicking. Want to play chess?"

Severus beat him three times in the space of an hour. "Terrible playing, even for you."

"Been thinking."

"Thinking?"

"I got asked out today."

"Hm? Doesn't that happen every day? One of your countless admirers throw herself at you?"

"Ben. Ben asked me out. And then he kissed me."

"What?" Severus reset the pieces. "When did this happen?" His pawn objected to being moved, and slouched in its space.

"Um. Today. During break. In the bathroom."

Severus narrowed his eyes. "He didn't punch you afterward, did he?"

"No." Potter blinked at him, then stared at his pieces until the queen screamed at him to get a move on. He moved a pawn.

He nodded. He quashed a possessive flare and tried to look on the bright side. A Potter with romantic obligations would actually leave the house, affording him some time alone. There hadn't been much of that lately. "So. When is it? Assuming you are open to a date with those of the male persuasion?" Another pawn.

"I'm not dating someone who pushes me against a wall and shoves his tongue in my mouth. That's just rude." Potter mimicked his movement with another pawn.

Perhaps he would get a hobby. He'd never seen the attraction in painting. There had to be something else. Music, perhaps. He'd think about it. "Is he supposed to ask permission?"

"Well, yeah. Sort of. Or at least give me a signal." Potter nearly always attacked with his rooks and knights.

Severus preferred his bishops and the queen. "Such as?"

"I don't know. …He could try holding my hand first." Potter lost his first knight to a pawn.

Severus looked up sharply. "…Then perhaps a kiss on the cheek?" he hazarded.

"Yeah, maybe."

"What then?" Severus lost his pawn to one of Potter's.

"Then, you know, if I agreed, we could go out. Spend some time together. And if I liked that, then he could kiss me. If he wanted. If he wasn't totally revolted."

He was flirting. Was he flirting? "Potter?"

"Yeah?"

"The blond git didn't actually kiss you, did he?" Severus' bishop caught out one of Potter's rooks. He wondered if Potter was deliberately throwing the game. Some of the pieces shouted helpful instructions. 

"Yes, he did. You don't think someone would want to kiss me?"

"I didn't say that. I simply don't believe he'd be so stupid as to clumsily proposition you today of all days, and in a restroom."

"Well, he did." Potter's king shouted at him. He moved a bishop and narrowed his eyes. "You think I'm lying?"

Severus took it with one of his own. Potter's pieces railed against their player. "Aren't you?"

"No, I'm not." Potter rolled his eyes. "It was the only place he's been able to get me alone lately. I've been staying away. I knew he wanted something. Everyone wants something."

Oh. He wasn't flirting, then.

"They don't just want to be my friend, ever. Ben thinks it'd be a great idea if I went to work with him. The twins want me to work with them. Ron thinks he can get me a place in the planning office. Hermione thinks it'd be a great idea if I helped out on one of her campaigns. And Remus keeps telling me how much I remind him of my father." Out of nowhere, Potter's queen snatched up one of his bishops. "I like my job. It's fun, now that I don't have to say what they tell me to say."

"Working ten hours a week speaking and pocketing nearly double your previous salary doesn't seem fair to anyone." Severus frowned. A pawn stood between his queen and Potter's. Blast. He sent it to Potter's remaining knight out of spite.

Potter smiled and took it. "I do volunteer stuff, too."

"Volunteer to lie out in the garden and play in the dirt," muttered Snape. He took Potter's remaining knight with his queen, even though it left Potter's queen open to take his. He didn't feel like playing much anymore. The board shouted at him.

Potter moved a pawn instead, completely missing the crippling move. "Are you okay?"

There was no way he hadn't seen it, hadn't heard the board screaming at him. Potter was throwing the game deliberately. Something in him broke. Severus' lip curled. "Am I something to you, Potter, or am I nothing?" Severus' queen was free to take Potter's. "No more games. Decide now. Am I something, or am I nothing? A partner, or a pet? Decide now." 

Potter's mouth hung open slightly. He blinked. "Um."

"Fine," he snarled. "Let us declare this particular season in hell officially over. If you require something to nuzzle against when you're feeling lonely, I suggest you buy a cat." Severus picked up the box and swept the protesting pieces off the board.

"We were in the middle of that," Potter protested.

"No, I think we're done." He folded the board and banged it into its box.

"…I don't want a cat. They make the house smell funny."

"So do I." Severus took out a cigarette. "Good evening, Potter."

"Snape…?"

He left Potter sitting in the parlor, went up to his room, and locked the door.

XXXXX

He had two cigarettes in the dark. The second made him a little sick; he'd been cutting back.

He thought about sneaking down for a bottle of wine. Twice, he heard Potter pace past his door. He didn't knock, though.

He pulled the pages out of a paperback, folded them into little gliders, and sailed them out of the window. He only managed up to chapter three or so before he got bored and chucked the remainder of the book on the floor.

Months of cheek kissing and hand holding—like the good parts of his childhood had got lost, then sneaked around the back way to arrive at a time when he'd desperately needed them. Then they'd gone away again. Everything deserted him.

He slipped his wand out from its hiding place. It hummed.

"How far do you think we'd get? China? India? Africa? We'd blend in better with the Australians. I don't think I could stomach the Americans."

Perhaps he wouldn't even apparate. Perhaps he'd fake a ticket, find passage on some great steaming ship. Be near the water. Perhaps he wouldn't even leave the ship. Perhaps he'd sail away the rest of his life. Teach himself to swim, to fish. Stand in the sun until he was hard as leather.

He stank of stale sweat and cigarette smoke. He hadn't heard Potter in some time.

He unlocked the door, grabbed a towel from the linen closet, and shut himself in for a shower.

Water ran over him. Severus let it warm from cool to scalding. He scrubbed himself carefully, thoroughly. He paid the same attention to cleaning himself as he did the floors.

Perhaps he'd leave in the morning. Perhaps he'd smile as he cooked breakfast, apologize for his horrible behavior, then slip out while Potter was in the garden. Snape could imagine Potter standing in the kitchen, wearing that just-concussed look on his face as he realized Severus was gone.

He'd stop eating so much. He'd let the fan letters make him guilty. Perhaps he'd even go back to the youngest Weasley. Or the blond git.

Severus dried off. He wrung the water from his hair and stared at himself in the mirror.

"All squeaky clean?" sang the mirror.

He frowned. Who was he kidding? There'd be a manhunt before he ever got to a boat. He couldn't even hide like Black or Pettigrew. Despite rumors to the contrary, he'd never found an Animagus form. He envied them, in a way. Life as an animal would be somewhat simpler.

He sighed. Perhaps he would get a job. Something that lasted all day, and meant he'd only have to duck Potter at night.

Severus wrapped the towel around his waist and went back to his bedroom.

Potter had his back to the door. His glasses rested on the nightstand. His hair had been smoothed down. His shoulders tensed as Severus' shadow fell across him, blocking the light from the hall.

He was reclined in a position that suggested he'd borrowed it from a painting; the line of his bare back drew Severus' eye to where the edge of one of his navy blue sheets hid the cleft of his buttocks. The comforter had been folded down. He'd arranged the sheet to drape strategically across his middle, so that he might still claim some decency. His legs were skinny and lightly haired. 

As Severus studied him, Potter raised his head and peered back, blinking uncertainly. "I can't tell whether or not you're angry right now, so if you'd give me a clue…?"

Severus stepped in. He didn't shut the door. "What is this?"

"I'm, um, in your bed. Kinda naked. I sort of hoped I didn't have to explain it."

Severus narrowed his eyes to slits. "Do you do this often? Am I practice for the blond git?" If Potter was toying with him—

"No. And definitely not." Potter banged his head against the pillow. "I knew this was a bad idea. I just didn't know how to…" He sighed. "If you didn't like me at all, why have you been letting me kiss you?"

"Potter, are you even attracted to men, or is this some misguided attempt to give me what I want?"

Potter turned over. The sheet bunched across his thighs. His nipples were small and erect. "Do you—you do want me, then?" He shivered.

"Cold, Mister Potter?" His tone was silky.

"No. Just a little… keyed up. I don't know about all the… Look. I've been out with two girls in my entire life. With both of them, it felt weird and not right, and whenever Ginny wanted to—" He shook his head. "I'm not talking about her tonight. I've—I like being with you. I think I'd also like being with you. I do. I've thought a lot about it. You've had more experience. You're probably good at it—you're good at everything—not to say that you've, you know, been around the block or anything, because I d—oh, fucking hell." He pulled the sheet up to cover himself. "I'm sorry." He crossed his arms over his chest. "I meant to be all dashing about it. I brought a bottle of wine up." He pointed to the dresser. There was a bottle there, and two glasses.

Severus looked from Potter to the glasses and back again. "Potter. Are you a virgin?"

"Oh, sorry I tried to be slightly classy—I guess I'd have been better off if I'd hexed and jumped you."

"Potter. Are you a virgin?"

He stared accusingly at the shadow in the doorway. He sputtered for a few seconds. "Excuse me if I didn't want to end up a trophy on someone's wall."

Severus reflected. "That would be an odd trophy."

"Maybe they could put my name, the date, and the time on a plaque?" Potter laughed like he was about to cry.

Severus stepped further in. There was Potter, naked and trembling, waiting for his first time. He'd bypassed a host of colleagues and followers—people prettier and more successful than Severus could ever be. He couldn't know what he was asking for. "You honestly want to do this?"

Potter swallowed. He nodded. "Yeah." He flushed. It was strange to think that this Potter was the same one who used to turn red at the mention of anything sexual. He must be miles out of his comfort zone, Severus thought.

He remembered his first time. In a pub, in the back room. He'd been too drunk to feel anything, but that was how he'd planned it. He'd wanted to get the whole business over with. He'd been terrified.

He wondered how fast Potter's heart was racing. He wondered if Potter wouldn't suddenly leap from the bed and declare it to have been a mistake, then apparate them both back to the Ministry and turn Severus in for daring to molest the great Harry Potter.

That was probably the worst case scenario.

Best case?

"Snape? Are you… should I go?"

What if he made it good? What if it was so good, Potter forgot all about silly blond gits? What if he could have Potter all to himself, in his bed every night—like regular people. Like regular lovers. Even just for a while.

After a moment, Severus slid home the lock.

Potter clutched the sheet in front of him.

"For privacy," said Severus. 

Potter nodded. "I've already cast all the protection and cleaning spells on myself. Not that I'm worried about where you've been or anything, just—you said people should be safe and I thought—"

"Quiet."

"Okay." He looked grateful.

Severus considered the wine. He approached it. It had been opened. "Had a glass already?"

"A little one."

"Did it relax you?"

"Not really."

Severus poured one. He walked to the bed and set it on the nightstand. "If you need it. Don't want you to dry out."

"I'm not sure what that was implying, but I hope it was good." Potter's eyes almost shone in the dark. Moonlight lit the room, along with the glow from the hall under the door. "Should I do something? I mean, do you want me to—" He tentatively reached for the spot where Severus had tucked his towel, pausing before he touched it. "Can I?"

"If you like." He couldn't help it. Potter was nude and offering to undress him. He began to stiffen under the towel. There was a momentary surge of panic. What if he was—not what was expected? What if he didn't measure up to some imagined ideal that—

Potter pulled the towel open. It slithered down his hips and puddled on the floor.

Severus shut his eyes.

Silence.

Technically, they hadn't done anything yet. There was still time for both of them to back out gracefully—

"Oh," breathed Potter. 

"What?" He cracked an eyelid. "What is it?"

Potter shook his head. He blinked. "You're kind of big."

Severus watched as Potter leaned in for a closer look. He bit his lip.

"Oh! You—you jumped. I've done that, too," said Potter. He nodded sagely, like he did during dinner conversation when he thought he'd just made an important point.

Severus caught a chuckle. "Have you."

"Yeah." He tilted his head. "What?"

"Nothing. Lie back, Mister Potter."

"Oh—okay. Like this?" Potter stiffened. He stretched out like a corpse, his arms at his sides. "I don't know how you—want me to do this. Or—will you be able to get to me like this?" He raised his hand to his mouth and worried at his tortured thumb.

"Get to—no. Relax, Potter." Severus lowered himself to the bed, sitting next to the prone man. "We're a ways from any of that. I'm not going to hurt you. Do you trust me not to hurt you?"

He took his thumb away. "I think so." Potter clutched the sheet in one hand.

"I assure you, I will treat you like nothing less than a gentleman." Severus took the other and pressed his lips gallantly to Potter's knuckles.

Despite himself, Potter snickered.

Severus arched a brow. "You're not supposed to laugh at me."

"Sorry. I'll try to be properly solemn." He schooled his face into a mask of seriousness. "Just not what I expected."

"What did you expect?"

"I don't know." Potter pressed his lips together for a moment. "At some point, I want to be kissed. Properly. I think I can do this, but I won't know until—mmph."

Both of Potter's hands wound in the sheet, leaving Severus free to kiss Potter's soft, pink mouth. He curled alongside the tense young man and pressed his lips once gently to Potter's, tasting the swell of a lower lip with the tip of his tongue before he pulled away.

Potter's eyes fluttered open. 

"More?"

He nodded. "Yeah, that'd be good."

He pressed his lips to Potter's once more. With only a bit of coaxing, Potter opened to him. He gasped and groaned into Severus' mouth, jerking bodily when Severus' tongue touched his own. His hands left the sheet to stroke Severus' cheeks before they buried themselves in handfuls of damp, black hair. He used them like reins, steering the slow exploration, pulling gently to let Severus know he needed a breath before nudging their mouths together once more.

Just once, Severus was weak enough to press his leaking prick into Potter's side, teasing himself with a bit of friction.

"Oh," said Potter, breathing hard. "That's your…" He angled his head up, allowing Severus access to his slim, white throat.

Severus licked at his bobbing Adam's apple. He kissed it, then sucked at the hollow in the base of Potter's throat, delighted to find that Potter wasn't steering so much as hanging on for dear life. "Relax." He paused to help untangle clutching fingers from his hair.

"Ngh," he gasped, "I want to hold onto you." There was an unmistakable tent in the sheet below Potter's waist.

Snape threaded his fingers with Potter's. "Better?"

Potter whimpered. He whispered something.

"What?" Severus bent his ear to Potter's mouth.

"Hurt."

He pulled back, slightly alarmed. "What hurts?'

Potter squeezed his eyes shut. He brought Severus' hands to his chest, guiding his fingers to small, pebble-hard nipples as pink as Potter's mouth.

"They hurt?"

Potter flushed. He pulled their hands away. "Never mind. Could we just kiss some more?"

Severus studied Potter's nipples. "Are they tight?"

Potter looked desperate. "I didn't mean to—forget it. Don't—"

He closed his lips over one of the tiny, pink buds and sucked it gently before laving it with broad, firm swipes of his tongue.

Potter cried out. His knees rose as if he wanted to fold in on himself. His hands fought Severus'. "Oh, please," he cried, his breath shuddering out. "Please," he begged. Severus released Potter's right hand in favor of rubbing and plucking at Potter's unattended nipple. The freed hand immediately found its way into Severus' hair.

"Do they still hurt?" Snape asked, releasing Potter's other hand so that he might switch and attach his mouth to the other nipple.

"Not really—hurt. Tight," moaned Potter. "Really tight—ahh. Nobody ever—" He took little hitching breaths. "Snape," he whined. "Snape. I c-can't—stop—too much. Too much," he cried.

Snape stopped. He stroked the planes of Potter's chest and stomach with his hands, reveling in the feel of each answering shiver and shake. "Potter?" he asked, when the heartbeat under his ear had slowed somewhat.

"Yeah?" He sounded distant.

"Do you think you might release my head? Or are you keeping it here all night?"

"Dunno." Potter's fingers relaxed and carded through Snape's hair, occasionally running into a damp snarl. Severus found a comfortable spot and settled in for a few moments. "Sorry," he said eventually. "I wasn't mentally prepared for that part. Didn't see anything nipple-related coming into the picture at all." He paused. "Do yours do that?"

"I don't think so. But the matter may bear some investigation." Potter released him.

Severus rolled off onto his side.

"Yours are sort of… crinkly," Potter pronounced. "You've got more chest hair than I do. Maybe it's just that yours is darker. Can I…?" He reached forward and fingered a single nipple. He peered down, intent on the small bud. It took him a moment to look up and realize that Severus was staring. "Oh. I—"

Severus captured his mouth again. He almost tasted sweet, Severus thought. It wasn't a cloying, sugary thing—it was something light and pleasant, the kind of taste he'd happily spend all day trying to identify.

Potter's hands fisted in his hair again.

"Potter," he snorted, breaking off. "If you don't stop that, we're going to have to tie your hands."

He flushed and removed them. "I'll be good," he promised with a small, guilty smile. "I like your hair."

"I can tell." This time it was Potter who leaned in for a kiss. Severus toyed with the edge of the sheet between them.

"Time for something else?" he asked Snape. It was impossible to miss the tremor in Potter's voice, or his appreciative full-body glance.

Severus smiled wickedly. "Turn over, Mister Potter."

"What?"

"Turn over," he said, letting each word drip like honey.

Potter stared, then slowly rolled over. He discreetly adjusted his erection before sinking against the mattress. "What are you going to do? Snape? I… do you want me to call you by your first name? Snape just seems strange now."

Severus slid easily astride Potter's thighs. "Then call me Severus."

"Severus. Okay. Could you call me Harry?"

"Is it that important?" Severs smoothed his hands across Potter's back, mapping the surface, noting the topographical features—a mole here, a scar there. 

"Yeah. Call me Harry, please?" He sighed slowly. "That feels nice."

It wasn't a massage, really; he wouldn't have a clue how to give one of those properly. It was just touch, pressure, the warmth of skin against skin. Potter was ticklish near his ribs at his sides. The knots in his shoulders melted, untied. Severus kissed his neck, his shoulder blades. He traced the line of Potter's back with his tongue, following it down, down.

He didn't ask permission. Perhaps he should've. Severus moved down the bed. He nudged Potter's legs apart and settled between them. He lavished attention on Potter's lower back, kissing his sides until the younger man was well distracted. Then he pulled down the sheet, revealing a tight, gorgeous arse.

It was perfect. His buttocks were round and firm, and flexed delightfully when Severus reached out to stroke them.

"Severus?" Potter asked.

"Shh," he hushed Potter, lost in a moment of private communion. "I'm going to show you something so lovely." He sighed dreamily, petting Potter's naked bottom. He pressed a kiss to the center of each beautiful cheek, and smirked at the startled gasps.

"That's my bum. You know that, r—oh my god, okay—oh—kay—fuck. Fuck me, fuck, fucking—oh. Wow." Potter panted and turned to look at him. "Snape. Severus. Did you just—was that your—okay, you're doing it ag—guh."

He wasn't going to give Potter a chance to become self-conscious. Snape parted his cheeks and licked from the top of his cleft down to his tiny, puckered hole. He gave it a slow kiss and rubbed his nose in the fine hairs that surrounded it.

Potter's hands scrabbled at the sheets. "That's—that's my—oh. This isn't sanitary," he sighed, and buried his head in the pillow.

Severus licked softly at the wrinkles surrounding his hole. He was ever so pleased when Potter suddenly seemed to let go of the terrible tension he'd been carrying, and Severus was able to easily wriggle his tongue past the tight ring of muscle. He thrust his tongue into Potter, pleased to feel the answering ripple of movement, of Potter humping desperately at the mattress in search of satisfaction.

"You need a good fucking," he whispered to the puckered hole. He gave it a slow lick and felt Potter's responding whimper go straight to his cock. "Don't you? You need a nice, hard prick inside you. That's what you want."

"Oh, please," sobbed Potter. His hips bucked.

Severus shifted and tugged Potter up onto his knees. The younger man's cock bobbed in the air. Fluid seeped from its head. Potter was longer and thicker than he had any right to be. His eyes were glazed with lust. "Are you going to…?"

Severus was forced to make a slight detour. He went to the nightstand and removed a small jar. While he was there, he considered the glass of wine. "Do you mind?"

Potter shook his head no. He didn't look like he'd refuse much of anything. 

Severus swished a sip around in his mouth and swallowed it before he returned to his preferred station between Potter's legs.

"What's that jar?" Harry croaked.

"Lubricant."

"Wh—where'd you get that from?"

"I made it." Severus unscrewed the top of the jar. It had originally contained jam, but he'd washed it thoroughly and put the jar to a more noble purpose.

"You're not allowed to make potions." Potter propped himself up on his hands and craned his neck.

"It's not a potion. There's nothing magical about it." Severus slicked his fingers. "It's nothing but a precise mixture of some very common, very benign ingredients."

"What're you going to do with it?"

Severus blinked at him. He supposed he could let that kind of question go—just this once. "Allow me to demonstrate," he said, and slid a single finger into Potter, who absorbed the intrusion with nothing more than a soft touch of sound and a confused expression.

His eyelids fluttered and he gave a sort of strangled yelp at the addition of the second. Severus started with gentle thrusts. He listened to the way Harry's breath hitched, searching for the right spot.

"Ahh," Potter cried, and canted his hips. Severus dipped his fingertips into the jar and reached around with his free hand to collect Potter's dripping prick. 

Harry hardly needed any more involvement. He found his own rhythm before Severus could set it, and rode the fingers penetrating him with his eyes closed and his lip between his teeth. Needy, plaintive groans wrung out of him. Severus slipped in a third finger. Every noise Potter made jumped an octave.

He lasted for another minute or so. Severus murmured encouragement, his own cock aching.

When Potter came, he did it without a sound. His head was thrown back. His mouth opened as if to shout. Severus drew his fist back and forth, milking Potter's cock until it had nothing more to give. His hips pumped one final time into Severus' fist before his arms gave out and he collapsed face-first into the mattress.

He should let Harry have a minute to recover, he knew. He should stretch out supportively and wait. His jaw clenched. "How do you feel?" Severus barked. He softened his tone. "In your own time, of course."

"…Like I've got your fingers up my arse," Potter eventually answered. "And pretty brilliant, thanks."

Relief flooded him. "Good."

"…Sorry about your sheets."

"They're used to it."

Potter snickered into the pillow.

Awkwardly, Severus removed his fingers and reached for the discarded towel on the floor. He wiped his hands.

Potter watched him. "Are you all right?" He realized something. "You haven't—you didn't… Don't you want to…?"

"Are we capable of finishing a sentence?" He tossed the towel aside.

"You know what I mean. Aren't you going to…? You know."

"No. What?"

Potter blinked before he realized he was being toyed with. He rolled his eyes. "Don't be a git. Come up here, or I'll think you like my bottom better than me."

Severus stretched out at Potter's side. "It would be a close contest." He arranged himself. "It'll hurt, you understand."

"Thought you said you wouldn't hurt me?" Potter bit at his thumb.

"That claim only applied to the previous portion of the evening's entertainment."

"Oh. Not much of a liar, are you?"

"I've quite lost the knack."

Potter leaned in and kissed him soundly.

"Remember where that mouth has been."

"I am," said Potter. "By the way, you're wrong about that stuff in the jar. I think it is magic."

"Oh? Is that what you think?" He leaned in for another kiss, and used the momentum to prod a sweaty, defiled Potter onto his back.

Potter was a great deal more docile when sated. Between kisses, his mouth curved into a strange little smile. Severus slid over him and slipped into the valley between his parted thighs. Harry sighed. "I've done a lot of reading about this."

If Potter wanted to talk, he could talk. Severus moved lower, tracing Harry's collarbone with his tongue.

"Didn't want to be completely unprepared, you know. Ohh."

He flicked each swollen nipple once with his tongue. No need to torture him unduly, Severus thought. At least, not too much. His descent hid a smirk.

"It's an odd switch. I mean—ah—there's thinking about it. Then there's having a fantasy. Then there's the actual mechanics of the thing—hnn."

Severus tried not to be too obvious as he slicked himself. He ached. It was tempting to give up and stroke himself to a finish all over Potter's quivering stomach.

Even more tempting was the resolute look in Potter's eye as he lifted his hips ever so slightly. "I tried to practice a bit. On my own, I mean. When I decided."

"Oh?" He hooked Potter's right leg over his arm and leaned down for another kiss.

"McGonagall never intended Transfiguration to be used for that sort of thing." Potter broke off into a gasp. 

Severus nudged the blunt head of his cock against Potter's entrance.

"I used one of the candles. We pretty much don't use them, and they're tapered, so…" He swallowed. "Plus, they're easy to shape."

Severus arched a brow. "I do hope your practice involved more than remedial Transfiguration." He pressed forward.

Harry bit his lip and closed his eyes.

"Breathe." He slid in slowly. Potter was hot and tight and—

"When I walked in and caught you wanking, I went back to my room and did it myself," Harry gasped out. His hooked leg kicked at the air. "I couldn't stop it. I didn't even want to—I had to. I just couldn't—couldn't stop it—" 

He couldn't be bothered to think up a response. He pressed harder, deeper, further, more. Severus petted Potter's chest, stomach, thighs with his free hand as he bore down. Sweat broke out on his brow. He needed a better angle. He hooked both Potter's legs over his arms and pressed them toward the young wizard's shoulders. The leverage lifted Potter's hips even further, presenting that beautiful little bottom in mid-skewer. Another inch. "Good." Just a bit more. "Good. So good." Finally, Severus sank in to the hilt. His bollocks made a delightful slapping sound against the firm flesh of Potter's arse.

Harry was very still. Wetness pooled at the corners of his eyes. He breathed in shallow gasps.

"Potter."

"Just go ahead," he said. "I can take it."

Severus arched a brow. "It's not about taking it, Potter, it's about enjoying it." Potter's breath was hot on this cheek. He tried to hold still, but the temptation proved too great. He rolled his hips, slowly surging forward and back.

Potter jerked in his arms. He bit his lip. "I don't know if I can. I'll try—ngh."

"Don't try, Potter. Relax," he grunted.

Harry nodded. He kept his eyes shut.

Severus stilled. "Potter. Try putting your hands in my hair."

Potter opened his eyes.

"Just this once," said Severus. "Don't go getting comfortable."

His shy smile returned. Potter reached up and dragged Severus down into a kiss. His fingers wound in the black locks. "Mm. Better. Okay. Now."

"You're going to be demanding, aren't you?"

Potter rolled his eyes. His reply was cut short by a sudden moan. "Oh—right there. Right there—that's good." He smiled between gasps. "It's good," he told Severus, and began to match his lover thrust for thrust. 

That's what they were now. Lovers.

Severus drove his cock into Potter's arse. He leaned his full weight on Harry, daring him to object as Severus pinned him against the mattress and fucked him into an incoherent stream of sighs and squeals. Severus stroked Potter's rapidly hardening cock, murmuring obscene words that made Harry's eyes widen even as he hardened further.

Harry put his mouth on anything within reach. He kissed lips, he bit at the pale expanse of neck—he sucked Severus' fingers, illustrating a surprising amount of natural talent that might come in handy on other occasions. They both wriggled and shifted; Potter locked his ankles around Severus' waist, using his legs to pull Severus deeper.

"Oh. I'm going to—" Potter panted.

Severus was nearly there himself. He screwed his cock into Potter's arse with renewed vigor, his balls tightening at the sight of Potter furiously stroking his erection. "Come, Harry. Come," Severus hissed.

Potter whimpered. His hand was a blur.

He couldn't bear it. Every part of his body tensed—and then he was coming, coming, filling Potter's arse as a moan announced the arrival of Potter's own climax. 

Severus wasn't certain a moment after, but he wouldn't have been surprised if he'd blacked out. Harry held him. They were sticky and sweaty, and if they didn't do something about it soon, they would wind up glued together. Potter was awfully quiet.

Severus pulled back slightly. He looked down at Harry, who hadn't bothered to unlock his ankles, and gazed back as if he just might decide not to. "All right?" he grunted.

"Yeah," said Potter, nodding. "You?"

"Mm." He settled back down into the embrace.

"Think it'd be uncomfortable to sleep like this? Because I'm all for trying, right now."

"Just for a minute," Severus conceded, and put his head down.

A short while later, they woke. It was indeed cold, sticky, and uncomfortable, and Harry winced a bit before he healed himself and spelled them clean.

Severus reclined on the bed and watched as Potter adjusted the fallen sheets and blankets, then made a show of fluffing the pillow under Severus' head. He then flopped down on top of Severus, pulled up the bedclothes, tucked them both in, and (there was no other word for it) snuggled close.

"You're going to drool on me, Potter, aren't you."

"I don't know what you're talking about. I've never drooled in my life."

"I'm going to wake up in a puddle of saliva."

"Oi."

"This mattress is going to squelch—"

"Go to sleep."

He wasn't going to, at first, but then he realized he was tired. Severus yawned. Potter yawned.

Potter fell out of bed at three, waking them both. Severus wiped the very small amount of drool off his chest with his hand. Potter clambered back into the bed.

"You snore," Potter said.

Severus wiped his hand off on Potter's shoulder.

They slept.


	6. Chapter 6

There was a point in the brewing process where one thing ended and another began. It wasn't a sloughing off of the old; the old was still there, under the new, shaping and shadowing each change as it came.

He put the last bottle on the shelf. Given a cauldron and a few other tools of his former trade, he could've made some quite spectacular potions from the inventory. He had full access to enough ingredients to cause a major Wizarding World catastrophe, if the truth were told.

But then, these days he was more interested in writing scathing editorials to various papers under one of seven different pseudonyms, and in working on the cookbook (a project five years in development, and nowhere near completion). The Aurors that showed up for random audits had nothing much to report, really, and ended up watching the shop for a couple of days from the café across the street. Harry usually went right up and had a chat with them while he waited for Severus to get off work. It was good for Harry to get out; having a fireplace, two telephones, and a personal computer (Severus refused to touch anything the muggles labeled a 'Gateway'—"There's no telling where it might lead!") often chained him to the house.

Perhaps they had today.

"Why Severus, where is your escort?"

"I'm not sure," he answered honestly. He peered out the shop windows. The streets were devoid of anyone and anything Potter-shaped.

"Well, if you're going home without him, you make sure not to stop and talk to strangers, you hear? Be safe on the roads." Mrs. Chao handed him his pay envelope and patted him on the arm. She was a stout woman with a glare that froze the marrow of any unwary shoplifter unlucky enough to pass through the door of 'Herbal & Earthly Delights.' Most people were under the impression that the place was a sweet shop until it was far too late to back out of making a purchase.

Severus prepared and bottled herbs, arranged and cared for displays of the live plants, and was unaccountably rude to customers stupid enough to ask him questions. Mrs. Chao's arthritis kept her from doing the delicate clipping and cutting, and she wouldn't venture reaching above the level of her head for anything in the store, so Severus' extremely cheap help was appreciated (no matter how many times he told someone that Echinacea couldn't help them, there was no cure for idiocy).

She told everyone he was 'touched in the head' and to ignore his outbursts as he really couldn't help them, the poor dear. She could usually turn the resulting backpedaling into a sale. Severus would've thought her a genius, except that she really did think he was 'touched.' She also thought Potter was his younger brother who came to watch out for his unbalanced sibling. It seemed easier than explaining the alternative.

"He usually tells me when he's not coming."

"Perhaps he's running late and you'll meet him on the road. Goodnight, love. Tell Harry I said hello." She waggled her brows suggestively.

Severus held his tongue. Barely. "Goodnight, Mrs. Chao."

He left the shop looking both ways. The town was muggle as muggle could be, but you never knew.

He unlocked his bicycle from the rack, mounted it, and settled into an easy coast down the lane. Potter still couldn't ride it properly. When they walked home together, Severus sometimes goaded him into riding it. He was fine as long as the road was straight. Unfortunately, they lived smack in the middle of rolling hills.

Something in the window of the town's dusty pawnshop caught his eye. Severus slowed to a stop.

He wasn't supposed to make detours.

He checked his pay envelope, peered in at the price tag, hopped off the bicycle, and went inside.

"That. In the window," he pointed.

"…It's fragile. You want to take it home on a bicycle?" the shopkeeper asked.

"I've got a basket."

Moments later, he stowed his carefully-wrapped parcel in the basket and shoved off again. He half-expected to meet Potter walking toward the shop on his way home. He didn't.

Perhaps something had happened.

He pedaled faster, dodging ruts in the road with practiced ease. The house was only a few miles out of town, and Potter often liked to cheat the walk by flying his broomstick in his invisibility cloak. Maybe Potter was playing some humorless trick on him.

As he rounded the final corner, he let out a breath. At least the house wasn't engulfed in flames and billowing smoke.

He coasted down the drive, parked his bicycle in its customary position next to the house, and retrieved his parcel. He felt for his emergency wand. Something was off.

He opened the front door. The house was quiet, but the lights were on.

Severus frowned. He shrugged out of his cloak and hung it up on its peg. "Harry?"

There wasn't an answer at first. Then—"Upstairs."

He took the steps two at a time, defying those who claimed that since he wasn't using magic, he was aging like a muggle. Magic wasn't switched on or off like a lamp. When you had it, you had it. His hair had a touch of silver, true, but so did Harry's (though his was certainly stress-related).

On the wall near the staircase, the line of pictures played out their scenes. He didn't like most of them, except for the old black and white one that Creevey had snapped of him and Potter outside a Ministry waiting room. They'd kept their hands to themselves then, but in the picture they didn't.

There was another Creevey in the parlor that Severus considered excellent. It pictured a skinny girl with glasses and long, dark plaits, swinging her schoolbag back and forth as if she were bored to tears. It was taken just after she'd been cited for underage use of magic at age nine. (Severus couldn't have been more proud.)

He rounded the corner, stopping at the entrance to their bedroom. It was empty.

"In here," called Potter.

Severus turned. His old bedroom had become the study. He leaned on the doorframe. "You didn't come today."

"Yeah. Sorry about that." Harry smiled. There was something odd. He'd combed his hair flat, and wore his good robes. "Time got away from me. Scylla's coming home."

He fell back. "Merlin, no. Tell me she wasn't ejected from Beauxbatons, too."

"What did I say? Name your daughter after a sea monster, and you get what's coming to you." 

"That joke will become old someday."

Potter grinned. "She's doing fine. I asked if they could send her home for the weekend."

"You'd think you'd save the celebrity credit for the next disciplinary hearing."

"Well." Potter shrugged. "I just kind of… wanted her around this weekend. Thought we could cobble together a sort of bash. All the family."

"This includes Weasleys?"

"If you want. It can be just the three of us, otherwise."

He arched a brow. "Where?"

"In the backyard. Something close to home. Something to remember." Potter shrugged and sighed a little. He sat at the desk. His thumb edged toward his mouth.

"No biting. Smoking for biting. You bite, and I get a cigarette." That's when Severus noticed. Harry's wrists were loosely bound together.

Potter blushed. "I thought we could—you know."

He arched a brow. "Right now? Here?"

"Unless you have something else pressing." Potter smirked. "Lock the door?"

He shut and bolted the door. There wasn't a worry of anyone coming in, but Harry was very big on the illusion of security. To Severus' surprise, he put up a silencing spell around the room.

Harry just smiled. He rose from the chair and moved to Severus, leaning up for a kiss.

"Mm." He groaned into Potter's mouth.

Potter looped his bound arms over Severus' head. He returned the kiss until he was forced to break away for a breath. "Fuck me in the chair," he panted. 

"Ooh. Such language, Mister Potter. We may have to give you a spanking."

"Don't want a spanking. Want you to fuck me in the chair," he growled. "Don't want to play, don't want to be nice, want you to fuck me—"

"In the chair. I think I understand." Severus slid his hands under Potter's arse and lifted him just enough to provide a slight amount of friction. Harry rubbed his erection against Severus' leg. "Should've taken your robes off first."

"There's nothing underneath," he answered, and bent to suck at Severus' neck. "Hurry." Harry's hands fought against their bonds and found they could gather small handfuls of inky hair despite being fastened.

Severus smacked Harry on the bottom. He enjoyed the squeaks he sometimes got out of Potter. "I don't like having my hair pulled."

Potter worried his lip. "But it's so gorgeous and long—"

Snape stepped out from under the ring of Potter's arms and turned him to face away.

"What are you doing?"

He unfastened his belt buckle and dropped his trousers to his knees. He couldn't be bothered to wrestle with his boots. "Making it so that you can't pull my hair," he explained, and pushed down his boxers.

Harry leaned forward against the desk and sighed. He shivered when Severus stepped behind him and flipped up his robes.

"Not even y-fronts. Potter. I'm shocked." The blunt head of Severus' cock found its favorite spot and nudged against Harry's opening. "You've thought so far ahead. Tell me you have something to ease the passage."

With his tied hands, Potter opened the desk drawer and produced a jar of clear liquid. He whimpered softly.

"Excellent." Severus didn't bother preparing Potter. He wasn't in the mood for anything light. He slicked his cock well, stroking the swelling length in time to the rock of Harry's hips.

"In the chair," he hissed. "Please, in the chair."

Severus edged the chair away from the desk slightly and sat down, spreading his legs as best he could. He fisted his hand in the back of Harry's rucked-up robe and hauled him backward until Potter's hole kissed his cock. He thrust it home, feeding his length into Potter so quickly they both called out.

Harry stilled, half-seated on Severus' lap. He couldn't brace his hands while they were tied.

"So that's what your game is," Severus murmured. "Want me to make you ride my cock?" He drew his prick halfway out before driving it back, deeper and deeper with every stroke. He fastened his hands to Potter's hips, moving him exactly where he liked. He leaned back in the chair to get a better angle, and was rewarded with a sharp cry. 

Sometimes Harry needed it this way, hard and fast and without mercy. "Yes, yes," he gasped.

"Like me fucking you?" he panted along, gripping Harry's hips unmercifully as he forced them down onto his cock. "Like me fucking my cock deep into you? Like dripping come on the carpet? Think if you're good, I'll suck it all out of you, mine and yours?"

"Yes," Potter wailed, raising his hands above his head as if to gain more leverage when he sank down.

"Think I want to suck your prick until it comes? Want to fuck my mouth when I'm finished fucking you? What do you say? Want me to tie your hands to the back of the chair and make you come?"

"Make me," echoed Potter, thrashing against the bindings, keening with every thrust. "Make me, Severus, make me come—make me come—" He cried out and thrust back hard. His seed shot from his cock, spattering the carpet under the desk.

Severus only needed the barest amount more stimulation. He buried his cock in Potter's arse and shouted as he came, mouthing Potter's shoulder, back—anything his lips could reach.

"I'm the most selfish person I know," Potter panted. His eyes were closed.

"Feel free to be selfish. I find I enjoy it." Severus leaned his forehead on Potter.

He snorted. "…Merlin."

"How long has it been…?"

"Ten years. At least ten years since it was like that." Potter was precariously perched on his lap. "Untie me, please, so I can fall down."

"You can't untie yourself with a spell?" Severus was boneless in the chair.

"Spells? What are spells? Is my name Harry? Who are you?"

He leaned forward and pressed his lips to Potter's neck. He fumbled for the bindings on Potter's hands. With only a slight struggle, he untied the knots. "You're my willing love slave. It'll all come flooding back."

Potter turned around and climbed onto him, settling astride. He burrowed his head in the crook of his partner's neck. "You're bony."

"You love me," sniggered Snape.

For some reason, this was the wrong thing to say. Harry tensed.

He'd been right. Something was wrong. "Harry. What prompted this… exercise?"

He sighed and clambered off Snape, straightening his robes as he went. "I just wanted one more time, before…" Potter's face clouded. "We've had a good run, you know? Most people don't make it nearly so long."

Severus had thought Potter was incapable of shocking him. His mouth dropped open. "You just shagged me. You're not allowed to break up with me."

Harry frowned and shook his head. "It's not that. It's this." He removed a yellowed sheaf of parchment from a folder in the corner of the desk. "It was delivered while you were at work. I've been keeping in touch with Ben, you remember—"

Severus paled. "You're leaving me for the blond git?" He stood and tucked himself in to his trousers and underwear with as much indignation as he could muster.

"He's been helpful, lately. Really helpful."

"If you're shagging the blond git, Potter—"

"Merlin's sake, Severus! I'm trying to tell you something important! It's Minister Shacklebolt's last week in office! …You've been pardoned," Harry croaked. His voice caught. He held out the parchment. "You've been pardoned. There it is."

"What…" Severus was almost afraid to touch it. He took the parchment gingerly between his fingers, as if it might crumble away. He read. He scanned the documents once quickly, and again more slowly. "I've been pardoned," he breathed. He sat back down.

"You have to go down to Ollivander's and get a new wand. The old one being broken and all."

Down the hall, the clock ticked.

He read the pages again, turned them over, looked for hidden footnotes. "That's it, then? No provisions? No conditions?"

"No. It's not parole, not release. It's a pardon. You get to go. You're free."

Severus reread the parchment one last time. "Free." His fingers lingered over the official signatures at the bottom of his file. "Free." He finally glanced up. 

Harry looked ready to weep. "Please wait until after the weekend to leave. It would mean a lot to me if we could all have another weekend together before you—" His voice caught. He blinked furiously.

"Mister Potter."

Tears welled in his eyes.

"You're not happy for me?" he asked Harry, who wore a ring on his finger that had its partner on Snape's hand. Neither the engagement nor ceremony had been a grand affair, but they'd managed a few of the requisites: the exchange of rings, the drunken relatives, smashing cake on each other (or perhaps that'd been a timed Weasley prank—some events were best left to legend).

"Course'm happy for you. You deserve it." He wiped at his eyes and sniffled pathetically. "Please don't leave until the weekend. At least tomorrow. At least see Scylla come home. At least—"

"I bought myself a present today," said Severus, abruptly cutting him off.

Harry looked at Severus hard. "…What is it?"

He retrieved the parcel, set it on the ground (the only empty surface available), hunkered down next to it, and pulled off the wrapping. 

"Oh. One of those—ships in a bottle." Harry nodded. "You like boats." He knelt opposite.

Severus examined it. It wasn't in the best shape. One of the sails was lopsided, probably from being jostled on the ride home. He noticed then that he hadn't let go of the pardon. "If I'm free… I'd like to go out sailing. Someday. I can't even swim."

"I can, a little. …We could go. If you wanted. I don't know how to sail, though. We'd have to get someone to show us." Potter bit his thumb.

Severus pretended not to see it. "I might not even like it when we get there."

"You'll like it," said Potter.

"Want to pretend you never suggested I would up and desert my family?"

"Your family isn't here, are they? Without Scylla… it's just me." Potter swallowed. He stared at the parchment in Snape's hand. "They showed up at the door and just handed it over. Just like that. Gave me a pamphlet about a halfway house program they have."

"Yes, Potter, because I so want to go live in a halfway house with rapists and thieves."

"I'd help if you wanted to go somewhere else." Potter's knuckles were white against his knees. "Or do you want me to go somewhere else—"

"Shut up! Just—shut up, Harry." He faltered. It was too much at once. "Come here, you ridiculous imbecile."

Potter scooted across the floor to him. He wrapped one arm around Severus' waist, leaned in, and held on. "I don't really know what I'd do without you," he whispered, and then said something else in a very low voice, something neither of them said very often.

Severus reached for Harry's hand. He laced their fingers. He wasn't sure he trusted himself to speak.

Sunlight filtered through the curtains.

END.


End file.
